PKR hanging on a thin thread

(Malay Mail Online) – Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim has filed a formal complaint with the Registrar of Societies (RoS) against his “flawed and illegal” sacking from PKR, which puts the party at risk of deregistration if found guilty, his lawyer said.

According to New Sin Yew of BON Advocates, Khalid is contending that PKR had breached its own party constitution when it ordered his sacking last Saturday without stating who among the disciplinary board had conducted the hearing against him and who decided he should go.

“If the RoS finds any intentional breach of the party’s constitution, either by its central leadership council or its disciplinary board, then the RoS can cancel its registration,” lawyer New said when met yesterday.

The lawyer added that the RoS complaint was lodged on Thursday.

New said the purported offence falls under Section 13(1)(c)(iv) of the Societies Act 1966, which empowers the RoS to deregister a party if it is found to have wilfully contravened any provision of the Act.

He also said that PKR’s party constitution does not define what constitutes a disciplinary misconduct, and what offence Khalid has committed.

He referred to the Latin legal term “nullum crimen sine lege”, which states that no crime has been committed and no punishment can be meted out if someone did not violate a penal law.

Last Saturday, PKR’s disciplinary committee decided to expel Khalid ostensibly for his open defiance of the party’s decision that he must step down to make way for PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

But Khalid has refused so far to step down as mentri besar despite his sacking. Instead, the leader obtained the blessings of the Selangor Sultan to stay on in his post and later removed all six PKR and DAP state executive councillors serving in his administration.

The now party-less Khalid now merely has four PAS exco members and has deflected all calls for his removal, despite his detractors claiming he no longer commands the confidence of the majority in the state assembly.

A press conference was hastily convened on Thursday where 28 PKR and DAP assemblymen, and two of their PAS counterparts, signed statutory declarations of support for Dr Wan Azizah to replace the embattled Khalid.

Despite that, Khalid refused to acknowledge PKR and DAP’s claims of securing majority support to replace him, saying they needed to substantiate this with a motion of no confidence against him in the state assembly.

PKR’s ally DAP is already embroiled with a legal tussle with RoS for its refusal to recognise the party polls and office-bearers.

In the lawsuit filed this January 22 by Lim on behalf of DAP, the party wants the courts to quash a December 6, 2013 decision made by the RoS and declare the decision as legally invalid.

In an affidavit to support his application for leave of judicial review, Lim had said the RoS’s decision to refuse recognition of the party’s office-bearers was unreasonable and done in bad faith, claiming that the regulator had went beyond its powers.