PUTRAJAYA: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim can refer his questions of law to challenge the justiciability of the Pardons Board’s decision, which rejected his petition for a royal pardon, the Court of Appeal ruled.
In a unanimous decision, a three-man bench led by Court of Appeal judge Datuk Rohana Yusuf today set aside the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s dismissal of the former opposition leader’s bid to quash the board’s decision and allowed his application for two questions to be referred to the Federal Court.
Rohana said the court agreed that the appellants (Anwar and three of his family members) have met the necessary requirement under Section 84 of the Courts of Judicature Act and found that the High Court judge had erred not to allow the questions to be referred for deliberation on the decision-making process of the Pardons Board.
The court also reinstated their application for leave to initiate a judicial review to challenge the board’s dismissal of Anwar’s royal pardon petition over his sodomy conviction.
Rohana directed for the proceeding of the leave application to be stayed pending disposal of the matter at the Federal Court and fixed Feb 2 for case management at the High Court.
The other judges who presided were Court of Appeal judges Datuk Seri Zakaria Sam and Datuk Mary Lim Thiam Suan.
On June 24, 2015, Anwar and his family members – wife Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and daughters Nurul Izzah and Nurul Nuha, filed a judicial review against the board’s dismissal of the pardons petition on March 16 the same year.
However, their application was dismissed by the High Court on July 15, last year.
Lawyer N. Surendran and Latheefa Koya acted for Anwar and his family while senior federal counsel Suzana Atan and Shamsul Bolhassan appeared for the Pardons Board.
On Feb 10 last year, the Federal Court upheld 68-year-old Anwar’s conviction and five-year jail term for sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, 31, in 2008.
Anwar had filed for a review of the apex court’s decision which upheld his conviction and jail sentence, but his bid was dismissed on Dec 14, last year.