The four representatives sought to amend their originating summonses to include matters related to freedom of speech, following the Federal Court’s recent decision that Penang’s anti-hopping law was constitutional.
Prior to that, the four had argued that the anti-hopping law was unconstitutional and that an attempt to sack them as assembly members for switching allegiances was illegal.
In delivering his verdict online, High Court judicial commissioner Azizan Arshad said their amendment request “in stages” midway through their case was not justified.
Azizan also said matters related to the freedom of speech were the domain of the Federal Court and hence, should be referred to the apex court. He said the parties were free to file another originating summons on the matter.
He dismissed the applications with no order to costs.
The plaintiffs are assemblymen Zulkifli Ibrahim (Sungai Acheh), Dr Afif Bahardin (Seberang Jaya), Khaliq Mehtab Mohd Ishaq (Bertam) and Zolkifly Md Lazim (Telok Bahang).
The four claim Penang’s 2012 anti-hopping law has been wrongfully used against them. They also denied that they had defected or changed their party allegiance.
In late 2020, they filed three separate originating summonses to challenge a motion introduced by the Speaker during the state assembly sitting in October of that year to vacate their seats so that by-elections could be held.
The state assembly and the Speaker were named as defendants.
The Penang government then issued a special fiat to lawyers Malik Imtiaz Sarwar and A Surendra Ananth to represent the defendants.
As the originating summonses were still being heard at the High Court, the Penang assembly and Speaker agreed to hold off a motion to expel the four assemblymen via a consent order.
Zulkifli and Afif were sacked from PKR in 2020 and later joined Bersatu while Khaliq and Zolkifly are members of Bersatu. Bersatu left Pakatan Harapan (PH) and triggered the fall of the PH federal government in February 2020.
Lawyers DP Naban and Rosli Dahlan represented the four assemblymen.
Case management has been fixed for Oct 12.