Judicial commissioner Azizan Arshad set the date after hearing the arguments from Chetan Jethwani, for the four assemblymen, and Surendra Ananth, representing the Penang state assembly and its speaker, Law Choo Kiang.

The four assemblymen are Zulkifli Ibrahim (Sungai Acheh), Afif Bahardin (Seberang Jaya), Khaliq Mehtab Ishaq (Bertam) and Zolkifly Lazim (Telok Bahang). All are members of Bersatu.

Zulkifli and Afif were sacked from PKR in 2020 and later joined Bersatu, while Khaliq and Zolkifly are members of Bersatu.

They had filed writs against the state assembly and the speaker in 2020 to challenge a motion calling for them to vacate their seats and for by-elections to be held.

At today’s hearing, Chetan contended that Article 14A of the Penang constitution was invalid for being inconsistent with the Federal Constitution.

“Two of my clients were dismissed from their party and the other two are still in the party, so Article 14A should not apply,” he said.

He said the four assemblymen had represented Pakatan Harapan at the 2018 general election but it was not registered as a political party.

However, Surendra argued the Federal Court had decided that the state assembly was entitled to enact laws to determine the qualification of its members.

“The Federal Court had also ruled that Article 14A was not void as it is consistent with Article 10 (1) (c) of the Federal Constitution,” he said.

Article 14A says a state assemblyman must vacate his seat if he resigns or is expelled from the party he represented at the election.

Last Friday, the Federal Court dismissed the assemblymen’s applications for leave to challenge the competence of the state legislative assembly in passing an anti-hopping law.