The former Klang MP said he filed the suit because caretaker Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob did not have sufficient support to seek the King’s consent to dissolve Parliament, be it among MPs or the Cabinet.
According to Santiago, Umno’s support for the dissolution of Parliament can only count for about 17% of the MPs.
“Other political parties have publicly disagreed with this decision, including Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Perikatan Nasional (PN).
“Assuming that all the PH and PN MPs opposed the dissolution, this would amount to 135 lawmakers, a clear majority,” he said in a statement.
He added that out of the 80 ministers in the Cabinet, only 29 were from BN.
“Even caretaker health minister Khairy Jamaluddin (from BN) said he disagreed with the holding of the general election in 2022.
“Caretaker youth and sports minister, Ahmad Faizal Azumu, has also publicly stated that Ismail did not inform the Cabinet about the dissolution,” Santiago said.
“Therefore, our stand is clear, we are challenging the advice given to the King by Ismail, which is void under the circumstances explained above.”
On Thursday, Santiago had filed an originating summons at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur to stop the Election Commission (EC) from conducting GE15, claiming that Ismail had breached provisions in the Federal Constitution.
He named Ismail, the government and the EC as defendants in the suit.
He wants a declaration that the request by Ismail to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong for Parliament to be dissolved was in contravention of Article 40(1) and (1A) of the Federal Constitution.
Yesterday, lawyers for the government filed an application to strike out Santiago’s suit, claiming that it was frivolous and a serious abuse of the court process.
They said the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s prerogative to dissolve Parliament could not be questioned in court.
The application also said the EC has a constitutional duty to conduct the election within 60 days and any move to challenge the conduct of the elections and the results could only be done by way of election petitions.
FMT understands that Attorney-General Idrus Harun has issued a fiat to a few lawyers from a firm to represent the three defendants.
They called for all proceedings relating to the suit by Santiago to be suspended.