Judge: CM post tussle academic; overtaken by events
Published on: Saturday, September 05, 2020
By: Bernama
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Kuala Lumpur: The tussle between Tan Sri Musa Aman and Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal for the Sabah Chief Minister’s position is not of current public interest as supervening events had overtaken the matter, Federal Court judge Datuk Seri Mohd Zawawi Salleh said.In his 29-page dissenting judgment, Justice Mohd Zawawi said the Sabah State Legislative Assembly had been dissolved on July 30 this year, hence any interest previously generated on Mohd Shafie’s appointment as chief minister has become academic.
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He said the court should not decide on issues when there had been a change of circumstances after the High Court delivered its judgment on the matter as it would make decisions or orders that had no consequence to the contending parties. The current interest is on the coming 16th Sabah State Election, he said in his judgment released in the Judiciary’s website.
Although Justice Mohd Zawawi regarded the matter as a historical one, he, however, said it was academic and parties in the case ought to put the matter to “bed”.
The judge said it was not at all obvious that a decision in Musa’s case would serve to resolve future disputes as each case was unique and must be decided on its own facts. He said there was no compelling justification to exercise the discretion to hear the merits of Musa’s appeal and he struck out the former chief minister’s (Musa) leave to appeal application.
Justice Mohd Zawawi said it was his view that the Court of Appeal was correct to uphold the preliminary objection raised by Mohd Shafie’s lawyers which was anchored on a letter issued by the secretary of the state assembly.
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“It is beyond argument that the applicant (Musa) had lost the confidence of the majority of the members of the state assembly by the time his appeal reached the Court of Appeal,” he said.
He said it would not be in the interest of justice for the Federal Court to determine an academic case where the decision has no practical effect on the parties.
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Last week, the Federal Court three-member bench, in a 2-1 majority decision, granted leave to Musa and Tamparuli assemblyman Datuk Jahid@Noordin Jahim to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s verdict.
Federal Court judge Datuk Abdul Rahman Sebli, in the majority decision which was concurred by Datuk Zabariah Mohd Yusof, had held that the court should hear Musa’s appeal to avoid recurrence of constitutional crisis.
He said there was no closure yet on the issue of whether Musa had been lawfully removed from office.
Musa was sworn in as Chief Minister on May 10, 2018, after securing a simple majority in the 14th General Election but lost the majority when several assemblymen from his party (Umno) and from a Barisan Nasional component party (Upko) jumped ship to give their support to Parti Warisan Sabah, which is led by Mohd Shafie.
Musa then filed an originating summons to challenge Mohd Shafie’s appointment as the new Chief Minister, claiming that he is the rightful Chief Minister of Sabah.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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