KUALA LUMPUR, April 23 ― The Melaka High Court today decided it will hear seven Melaka voters’ legal challenge against the Election Commission’s (EC) gazetted new voting boundaries, but the hearing has been fixed for after the 14th general elections (GE14) as more time was needed.

Chan Tsu Chong, one of the seven Melaka voters, said Melaka High Court judge Datuk Siti Khadijah S. Hassan Badjenid had granted leave for the lawsuit to be heard on the basis that the case was not frivolous and that there was an arguable case of malapportionment.

"Siti Khadijah ruled that there were prima facie evidences to show that there are malapportionment and gerrymandering which contravened the Federal Constitution,” Chan, who is also polls reform group Bersih 2.0’s outreach officer, told the media today.

Chan said the judge did not grant the Melaka voters’ application for a stay on the use of the EC’s new electoral map for GE14.

In a 21-page written judgment, Siti Khadijah dismissed the stay application, noting that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong had already made an order containing the new voting boundaries recommended by the EC and that the court should not interfere.

"That Order has taken effect and the EC has carried out the actions that were gazetted. There is nothing more that has to be done by the EC in relation to that Order, except to conduct the 14th general elections that have been scheduled to go on soon on May 9, 2018."

"The court should not interfere with matters and disrupt all the preparations that have been made for national matters under those responsible for carrying out functions according to the Federal Constitution itself," she said.

On April 7, Chan and six other Melaka voters had filed for judicial review against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the Election Commission, seeking various court orders including a declaration that the EC’s voting boundaries gazetted on March 29 was invalid and unconstitutional.

The others who filed the lawsuit are Neo Lih Xin, Azura Talib, Lim Kah Sheng, Norhizam Hassan Baktee, Amir Khairudin and Amran Atan.

In the seven Melaka voters’ lawsuit, they had sought for nine court orders, including declarations that the EC’s final redelineation report and the resulting gazetted order for redelineation in Peninsular Malaysia were unconstitutional.

The voters also asked for a court order to quash both the EC redelineation report and the gazetted order, as well as orders to compel the EC to comply with the Federal Constitution by holding local enquiries to hear voters’ objections and to also comply with constitutional requirements in preparing a redelineation report.

Lim Wei Jiet, the lawyer who represented the seven Melaka voters, confirmed that the Attorney-General’s Chambers had objected to his clients’ lawsuit being heard.

The judge however today allowed leave for the seven Melaka voters’ judicial review bid to proceed, finding that there are "prima facie findings of malapportionment and non-compliance with the Constitution, in particular Section 2© and 2(d) of the Thirteenth Schedule”, Lim said.

"She noted very significant malapportionment in N19 Kesidang, N20 Kota Laksamana and P138 Kota Melaka, whereby malapportionment gradually got worse from first recommendation all up to final report,” he told Malay Mail when contacted today.

The EC had went through two rounds of proposing recommendations for redelineation, before its final redelineation report that was submitted to the prime minister and later approved in Parliament late last month.

The court fixed May 28 as the hearing date for the Melaka voters’ legal challenge.

Lim said that his clients had sought for an urgent hearing date and for the hearing to be fixed for before GE14, but said the time frame was "too short.”

The nomination date for GE14 is April 28, with advanced voting to be on May 5 and the polling date fixed for May 9.

Bersih 2.0 said the High Court’s decision today meant that the legality of the new electoral boundaries which will be used in GE14 "is once again thrown into question”.

"The legality of the GE14 will be affected if it is contested based on the new boundaries, and the court later finds them unconstitutional,” the election watchdog said in a statement today, adding that it maintained that the new voting boundaries passed in Parliament on March 28 were unconstitutional, biased and unfair.