PUTRAJAYA, Feb 21 — The Election Commission (EC) today succeeded in effectively putting a stop to a lawsuit challenging the registration of 949 voters at an allegedly uncompleted army camp in Segamat.

Court of Appeal judge Tan Sri Idrus Harun said the appellate court decided to reverse a High Court ruling last month that allowed 48 Segamat voters to proceed with a lawsuit on the 949 voters.

"This is a unanimous decision... We are satisfied that there are merits in this appeal. We therefore allow this application and set aside the order of the High Court and make no order as to costs,” said Idrus, who chaired the panel of judges in this case.

The other two judges on the three-man Court of Appeal panel today were Datuk Kamardin Hashim and Datuk Zaleha Yusof.

Today was the hearing of the EC’s appeal against the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s January 8 decision to grant leave for a lawsuit by the 48 Segamat voters to be heard.

Last December 14, the 48 Segamat voters had filed for judicial review against the EC and the Johor electoral registrar Shafie Taib.

The 48 voters sought a court order to quash the entry and retaining of the 949 voters’ names in the supplementary electoral roll of the third quarter in 2017, as well as a declaration that the entry of the names in the same supplementary electoral roll is unconstitutional.

The 48 voters argued that the entry of the 949 voters’ names had violated Article 119 of the Federal Constitution and was unreasonable, irrational and unbalanced.

One of the 48 voters had previously in a court document said that a gazette dated October 23, 2017 had shown that the 949 army personnel and their spouses would be included in the supplementary electoral roll as voters in the P140 Segamat parliamentary seat and vote in the Segamat Camp locality.

Lawyer Michelle Ng, which represented the 48 Segamat voters, had told the Court of Appeal that the Constitution’s Article 119 meant that a citizen’s eligibility to vote in a constituency was dependent on them being a resident there.

She pointed out that photos taken in November 2017 had shown scaffolding at the new army camp’s site in Segamat and that a notice board there had stated the construction completion date to be April 16, 2018.

"Someone can be posted to work in a place but that doesn’t mean they are residents,” she said.

"We say that goes against the tenets of the Constitution, which requires someone to be resident of a constituency and not merely working in a constituency to be entitled to vote,” she later added, referring to the EC’s assertion that the army personnel had registered to vote using the address of their workplace.

"It is quite impossible for the military to take residence in a camp that is incomplete,” she later said.

Ng had also cited an example of breach of natural justice in arguing that there was exceptional circumstances for the court to hear her clients’ lawsuit, where the EC did not allow a Segamat voter who did not understand both Bahasa Malaysia or English to have a translator present during the objection hearing and who had to remain silent due to inability to understand the proceedings.

Ng said that her clients had already exhausted alternative remedies, noting that they had filed appeals to the adjudicating officer after the electoral registrar dismissed their objections to the inclusion of the 949 voters.

The adjudicating officer heard the appeals over a five-day period in the first week of January and also dismissed the appeals, she said.

Ng disagreed that her clients’ lawsuit that was filed before the appeals to the adjudicating officers was premature, saying that the adjudicating officer’s decisions would also no longer be valid if the courts decide to quash the registrar’s decision.

Earlier today, senior federal counsel Suzana Atan said the appeals to the adjudicating officer were still pending when the 48 voters filed their lawsuit.

"We say this application is premature, it shouldn’t have been allowed because there is appeals pending,” she told the Court of Appeal, also arguing that there were no exceptional circumstances for the High Court to grant leave for this case to be heard.

Among other things, Suzana cited the Johor electoral registrar’s December 21, 2017 affidavit where he testified to have created a locality code for the Segamat camp in the Segamat parliamentary constituency after receiving a letter.

The letter dated September 21, 2017 was from the Markas Angkatan Tentera Johor to the EC Johor office, and had notified that the Segamat camp was ready for operations.

When asked by Zaleha if the address was already in existence, Suzana said the letter had said the camp was already ready for operations and for activities to be carried out.

Suzana then went on to cite the EC’s voter registration division secretary Yusniati Ishak’s December 21, 2017 affidavit, where the latter said the 949 voters were registered upon the military’s request via forms that used the Segamat camp as their address.

When met outside the courtroom, lawyer Gobind Singh Deo said he would seek instructions from his 48 clients on whether they would want to file a fresh judicial review against the decisions of the adjudicating officer.