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KUALA LUMPUR — Electoral watchdog Bersih will take legal action against the Health Ministry (MoH) and the Election Commission (EC) for depriving Covid-19 positive individuals of their right to vote at the recent Johor election, said its chairman Thomas Fann.
The NGO’s lawyers are currently in the process of discussions with potential litigants to the case, or individuals who were actually barred from entering polling centres to cast their ballots last March 12.
“As an organisation we ourselves do not have the locus standi to take legal action, so we need those who were hindered or stopped from voting to come forward.
“Our lawyers will be meeting them very soon to discuss the direction of action and to seek their permission and agreement to become litigants. It should take place within one to two weeks,” he said at the presentation of Bersih’s Johor Election Observation Report held over Zoom this morning.
Fann explained that barring Covid-19 positive voters from carrying out their democratic duty went against Article 119 of the federal constitution which guarantees Malaysians of age the right to vote.
The chairman said that Bersih would seek to obtain a declaration from the courts that MoH and the EC’s actions had deprived Covid-19 positive voters of a fundamental right in barring them from the polls.
“What we want is an interpretation of the law that the right to vote is fundamental and no ministry or agency – nobody – can stop a voter from voting and the job of the EC is to facilitate that,” he said.
He added that Bersih managed to witness and record five such incidents of Covid-19 positive patients being denied entry into polling stations, noting at least 18,000 active Covid-19 cases on polling day according to MoH data.
“A patient was issued a RM1,000 compound for breaching her home isolation order, and others were plainly denied entry into polling centres when they came out to vote,” he said.
Bersih proposed that the EC, for future elections, arrange transportation for Covid-19 patients under either home quarantine or from isolation centres to be able to come out and vote safely. — The Vibes, March 30, 2022.
