Thursday 3 October 2013

Is the end nigh for the name DAP?

When the DAP successfully struck out an injunction bid by one of its members to hold their CEC Election in a Special Congress last Sunday the learned Judge among others said:

"The plaintiff is asking the court to question the party's standing order for the party to call the polls via the National Congress. I think this is a matter which the court cannot do."

She said the word “decision” stated in Section 18 (c) of the Act should be given a wide and liberal meaning.

"It means that DAP may face the possibility of being deregistered by holding the polls via a Special Congress, instead of a National Congress, but that is up to RoS (Registrar of Societies) and not for the court to speculate what would be or should be."

The entire DAP leadership was in full gear throwing nonsense at the ROS right after the second CEC Elections probably hoping that the ROS would be intimidated, which I think is a futile and immature thing to do as ROS only came in the picture and let us be clear about this...only when DAP members themselves complained. Read on.. a report from The Star:

DAP barking up the wrong tree, says ROS

"PETALING JAYA: The Registrar of Societies (ROS) says DAP is barking up the wrong tree as the party’s dispute was with its members, and not with the agency.

An ROS spokesman said it was DAP members who were dissatisfied with the leadership as they believed that the party constitution had been breached.

“We are merely acting on complaints lodged by DAP members. We received not one but many complaints,” he said, stressing that the dispute did not involve ROS.

He said this when asked to comment on DAP chairman Karpal Singh’s threat to take ROS to court for allegedly oppressing the party.

The ROS spokesman said the agency too could take action against the party on various grounds.

“But we want to help resolve this matter. If laws are interpreted according to perception, there would be no end to it,” he said.

He also called on DAP leaders to respect and observe their own party constitution.

“They can’t act as if they are not bound by rules,” he said.

On July 30, ROS directed DAP to hold fresh polls following allegations of discrepancies in the polls held in December last year.

ROS’ subsequent advice to hold fresh polls in a national congress and provide 10-week notice to branches fell on deaf ears.

DAP held fresh polls in a special congress on Sunday after giving delegates three weeks’ notice.

The ROS spokesman said they would wait for DAP’s report on its special congress and fresh CEC polls before deciding on the next course of action.

The spokesman also rebutted claims by DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng and special congress chairman Anthony Loke that ROS had refused to meet up with them to discuss the dispute.

“No government office shuts its doors on the rakyat. If they want to come and discuss they are most welcome to do so,” he said."

Yes apparently ROS advise to the DAP was to follow its own Constitution i.e to hold a National Congress and give 10 weeks notice to branches, which the DAP leadership conveniently defied and instead held a Special Congress giving only three weeks notice for the 2nd CEC Election.

Now we wait for the 'new' DAP CEC officials to report to the ROS, to see what ROS's action will be, lets remember the learned judge said:

"It means that DAP may face the possibility of being deregistered by holding the polls via a Special Congress, instead of a National Congress, but that is up to RoS (Registrar of Societies) and not for the court to speculate what would be or should be."

It would be interesting to see what ROS will decide to do within its powers, could it de-register the DAP for defying its own Constitution, lets not speculate, lets just wait.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

For now, it's better if ROS do not deregistered DAP, instead continually to not recognize the current CEC election. Keep doing that until they kowtow the rules and regulations prescribed by all societies registered here in Malaysia. Now it's interesting to see whether, without due power in DAP, LGE or even Karpal would want the matters to drag further.