PUTRAJAYA, May 5 — The hearing of the appeal in the Federal Court brought by sixteen former Umno members against the High Court and Court of Appeal’s dismissal of their bid for leave to commence a judicial review to challenge the legality of the political party, has been rescheduled to October 26.

Lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla representing the group, said the hearing fixed for today has been reset following the imposition of the conditional movement control order.

He said the matter was then reverted to a case management before Federal Court deputy registrar Azniza Mohd Ali through e-Review who instructed the parties to file their respective written submissions.

She also set September 28 for another case management to ensure the written submissions are in order.

The sixteen former Umno members were granted leave in Feb last year to appeal to the Federal Court against the High Court and Court of Appeal’s dismissal of their bid for leave to initiate a judicial review to challenge the legality of the political party.

The 16 former Umno members are Salihudin Ahmad Khalid, Noorhalimi Yahya, Mariam Mohd Ishak, Mohd Hafami Hanif, Saharudin Tukiman, Azaid Jani, Normalawati Hassan, Radiana Abd Manaf, Mohd Rafeek Rahim, Nurul Hanna Mohd Suhot, Kamarul Abd Wahid, Mohd Hikamal Md Hassim, Muzamzamir Abd Wahab, Norizam Jamaludin, Rohani Ahmad and Muhamad Hafizi Hashim.

In their application to seek leave to commence judicial review, the 16 former Umno members sought a certiorari order to quash the decision of the Registrar of Society (RoS), as announced through a media statement dated March 5, 2018, to grant Umno an extension for its party elections till April 19, 2019, which exceeded the maximum period.

They had further sought a mandamus to compel RoS to provisionally dissolve Umno and for RoS to suspend all Umno activities pending disposal of the judicial review.

They also wanted a declaration that Umno was illegal effective April 20, 2018.

On April 27, 2018, the High Court dismissed the leave application for judicial review filed by the group after allowing the preliminary objection raised by RoS.

The then High Court judge Datuk Kamaludin Mohd Said (now Court of Appeal judge) dismissed the application for leave for judicial review on grounds that Section 18C of the Societies Act stipulates that a party member cannot bring a dispute regarding the party to court.

The group lost its appeal, which was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on November 5 last year. — Bernama