The Kuala Lumpur High Court was told today that the Pardons Board had given wrong advice to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong in granting a full pardon to PKR president Anwar Ibrahim, who was jailed for sodomising his former personal assistant.
Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla, representing lawyer Mohd Khairul Azam Abdul Aziz, said the composition of the Pardons Board was not proper then, thus, the advice given to the Agong was not valid.
“In this issue, the one in the wrong is the Pardons Board and not the Agong. We are challenging the wrong advice given by the Pardons Board to the Agong under Article 42 of the federal constitution,” said Haniff in his submission in objecting an application by Anwar and the board to strike out the suit by Khairul Azam.
According to Haniff, pardons can only be given for the purpose of terminating or suspending a sentence rather than revoking the conviction that the court had decided.
“If a conviction is revoked, it means we play the role of the court because only the court can hear (testimony and evidence) and the court can also make decision,” he said.
J Leela, representing Anwar, submitted that the full pardon granted by the Agong could not be challenged in court and Khairul Azam had no legal position to continue with the suit.
“The plaintiff’s suit is trivial, an embarrassment and an abuse of court process,” she said, adding that under the federal constitution, the Agong could quash a court’s conviction.
Senior federal counsel Natra Idris said she also agreed with Leela on Article 42 of the federal constitution that allows the Agong to issue a pardon order for conviction.
Judge Akhtar Tahir set September 21 for decision and ordered all parties to file their other arguments, if any, on or before August 21.
Khairul Azam, in a suit filed on February 26, said the pardon granted to Anwar by the Agong, was in contravention of Articles 42 (4) and (5) of the federal constitution.
This is in view that pardons granted by the Agong should be based on the advice of the Pardons Board which Khairul Azam argued had not yet been formed in its entirety following the 2018 general election and the formation of the new government.
Khairul Azam is also claiming that following the election, several unconstitutional actions had been undertaken to ensure that Anwar received a pardon that released him from prison.
Anwar had been sentenced to five years jail for sodomising his aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan – the conviction and sentence was affirmed by the Federal Court on February 10, 2015.