Government lawyer Amarjeet Singh said Justice Azimah Omar held the application had no merit.
However, lawyer Ambiga Sreenevasan, who appeared for the state government, said she would apply for an Erinford injunction pending an appeal of today’s decision.
Azimah made her decision in chambers.
An Erinford injunction is a stay order to preserve the status quo until the appeal against the decision of a judge is disposed of.
On Friday, the state applied for a judicial review and also sought an injunction to stop the EC from conducting the local inquiry, pending the outcome of their application.
This new challenge comes less than a month after the Court of Appeal lifted a stay order preventing the EC from continuing the process of redrawing the electoral boundaries in Selangor.
The state government named the EC, its chairman Hashim Abdullah and Selangor EC director Ikmalrudin Ishak as respondents.
Menteri Besar Azmin Ali, in his affidavit to support the judicial review application, said there was a breach of natural justice as the state government was notified less than a week before the inquiry hearing on Jan 8.
“Besides that, we were only allowed to present our case within 30 minutes, and without legal representation,” he said, adding that this was a breach of his constitutional rights.
Azmin also said that if an injunction was not granted, the EC would proceed to conduct a local inquiry without taking proper consideration of the state’s concerns, such as malapportionment, gerrymandering, severance of local ties and non-compliance with the Thirteenth Schedule of the Federal Constitution.
Azmin said the Selangor government was not attempting to stop the EC from exercising its constitutional duty but wanted a longer time to prepare itself for the inquiry.
On Dec 7, 2017, the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed Selangor’s judicial review application to question the EC’s redelineation exercise.
However, Justice Azizul Azmi Adnan, who heard the case, granted a stay order pending the Selangor government’s appeal.
But the Court of Appeal lifted the stay order less than two weeks after the High Court’s decision.
After the cancellation of the stay order, the EC began the local inquiry on Dec 28.
The Selangor government filed the legal challenge in October 2016, seeking to nullify the EC’s notice of redelineation, claiming it violated the Federal Constitution.