Hearing of Anwar’s bid to strike out suit on legality of pardon pushed to March 18

The hearing of Anwar Ibrahim’s appeal against a High Court’s dismissal of his application to strike out a lawsuit on the legality of his royal pardon for his sodomy conviction has been brought forward to March 18.

This was confirmed by his lawyer J Leela. The hearing was initially set for July 28.

The appeal came up for case management today. Lawyer Mohamad Farhan Kamarudin appeared for Mohd Khairul Azam Abdul Aziz, also a lawyer, who filed the lawsuit against Anwar.

Anwar’s appeal will be heard together with that of the Pardons Board.

On Sept 21 last year, the High Court dismissed the applications by Anwar and the Pardons Board to strike out the lawsuit after finding that Khairul had locus standi to initiate the legal suit as he is a member of the public and a qualified person as lawyer.

Anwar filed the striking-out application on grounds that Khairul had no locus standi to file the originating summons and that it was frivolous, an embarrassment and an abuse of the court process.

Khairul, who filed the originating summons on Feb 26 last year naming the Pardons Board and Anwar as respondents, claimed that several unconstitutional actions were taken to ensure that Anwar received a pardon which released him from prison following the 14th general election in 2018.

He claimed that the pardon granted to Anwar by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong was in contravention of Articles 42 (4) and (5) of the Federal Constitution in view of the fact that pardons granted by the Agong should be based on the advice of the Pardons Board, which Khairul argued had not yet been formally established following the election on May 9, 2018, and the formation of the new government.

Anwar had been sentenced to five years’ jail for sodomising his aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, with the conviction and sentence affirmed by the Federal Court on Feb 10, 2015.