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PUTRAJAYA: The travel ban imposed on former Bersih 2.0 president Maria Chin Abdullah in May 2016 on the grounds that she had allegedly discredited the government was illegal, the Federal Court ruled today.
Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, who presided over a seven-member bank, said there was no positive legal provision that clearly and unequivocally established that the Director General of Immigration and the Minister of the Interior had the right to impose the ban on travel to Maria.
“The right to travel abroad is a fundamental right guaranteed to all people by virtue of article 5 (1) of the Federal Constitution. It is clear from the facts that the right of the appellant (María) has been violated ”, he said in his sentence.
On Immigration’s reliance on an internal circular to impose the ban on Maria, Judge Tengku Maimun said the ban could not be valid if all respondents (director general of immigration and interior minister) had the circular that certainly did not have such authority.
“I have read the circular and cannot find anything in the document that suggests, even remotely, that respondents have the power to blacklist people who have a valid passport, other than the specific factual situation in which they lose your passport, “he said.
The court which was also composed of the President of the Court of Appeal Tan Sri Rohana Yusuf and the judges of the Federal Court Datuk Nallini Pathmanathan, Datuk Abdul Rahman Sebli, Datuk Hasnah Mohammed Hashim, Datuk Mary Lim Thiam Suan and Datuk Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal, in a unanimous decision, allowed the appeal of Maria. on the first legal question.
The judges answered negatively to the first question of whether Section 3 (2) of the Immigration Law gives the Director General unlimited discretion to impose a travel ban. Whether the CEO can impose a travel ban for reasons that violate the democratic rights of citizens, such as criticizing the government.
However, in a 4-3 majority, the court decided in favor of the defendants that Section 59 and Section 59A of the Immigration Law are valid and constitutional.
Section 59 excludes the right of the person to be heard before the director general of immigration or the interior minister makes a decision, while section 59A states that there will be no judicial review in any court of any decision made by the minister or the CEO. Except for any matter related to the fulfillment of any procedural requirement.
Judge Abdul Rahman, in the majority decision, said that Section 59A had expressed with irresistible clarity the intention of Parliament to exclude judicial review of the decision of the Minister of the Interior, the Director General of Immigration and the state authorities of Sabah and Sarawak .
The other judges who agreed with the majority decision were Judges Rohana, Hasnah and Lim, while the minority decision was made by Judges Tengku Maimun, Nallini and Harmindar Singh, who were of the opinion that the laws (Sections 59 and 59A) they are unconstitutional and should be taken down.
Maria, 64, who is a member of Parliament from Petaling Jaya, was banned from traveling to South Korea on May 15, 2016 to receive an award for Bersih 2.0. However, the travel ban was lifted two days later.
He then requested a judicial review to challenge the decision of the Director General of Immigration to ban him from traveling.
She lost her case in Superior Court and Court of Appeal. He subsequently obtained authorization to appeal from the Federal Court in 2019.
The federal court heard his appeal in August last year and the decision had been reserved.
Attorneys Datuk Gurdial Singh Nijar, Lim Wei Jiet, Abraham Au Tian Hui and Joshua Andran appeared for Maria, while Senior Federal Attorneys Shamsul Bolhassan, Liew Horng Bin and Mohd Sabri Othman represented respondents. -Called
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