Lawyer Lim Wei Jeit said the stay order was filed last week and the Court of Appeal is scheduled to hear the matter on Friday.
“We are urging the court to give the state the order pending the outcome of its appeal in the Court of Appeal against a High Court ruling,” he told FMT.
Lim said the appeal would be heard on March 23.
On Dec 7, High Court judge Azizul Azmi Adnan dismissed Selangor’s judicial review application to challenge the EC’s exercise in redrawing the electoral boundaries, largely due to a binding Court of Appeal ruling.
Azizul dismissed all four grounds given by the state. These were: alleged malapportionment and gerrymandering in most constituencies; the names of about 136,000 voters were missing; the EC had failed to use the latest electoral roll to conduct its exercise; and a lack of information in the notice before the boundary redrawing exercise was carried out.
Lim said Selangor’s appeal would be academic if the report was handed to Prime Minister Najib Razak to be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat.
In October 2015, the Federal Court refused a leave application to appeal by Batu Lintang assemblyman See Chee How and Pauls Baya, a voter in Ulu Baram in Sarawak, to challenge the EC redelineation exercise.
The current Chief Justice Raus Sharif, who then led a three-man bench, said both See and Baya’s application to appeal against a Court of Appeal ruling was academic.
Government lawyer Amarjeet Singh, who represented the EC, had submitted that once the report had been submitted to the prime minister to be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat the court had no jurisdiction to hear the matter.
However, the apex court did not provide a judgment on its pronouncement.
On Feb 19, the Federal Court also refused seven Melaka voters and two opposition MPs from Perak leave to appeal against two Court of Appeal rulings last year on the redelineation proposals by the EC.
In both the cases, the merits of their cases were not heard, unlike in the case of Selangor.
Raus had said the EC’s recommendations were mere action and not amenable to judicial review.
Two days later (Feb 21), the Court of Appeal also upheld a High Court decision that declined to give leave to the Penang government over the redrawing of electoral boundaries in the state.
Penang govt fails again in bid to challenge EC’s boundary proposals