In the recently concluded General Election for the Parliamentary constituency of Ranau (P179) which was held on 21.3.2004, the 1st respondent, Tan Sri Bernard

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Dompok was returned as the duly elected candidate with a winning majority of 1,307 votes. He defeated three other candidates, one of whom was the petitioner Ruhimin Adzim @ Ruhimin bin Ajun, who seeks to have the 2nd respondent's election declared void for several violations allegedly committed by him against the provision of the Election Offences Act 1954 (hereafter 'the Act'). The petitioner also named the Returning Officer as the 2nd respondent in this petition, alleging certain improprieties against him in the conduct of the election.

On being served the petition, the 1st respondent filed a motion to have it set aside on various grounds which I will address shortly. The 2nd respondent also gave notice that on the hearing of this petition several preliminary objections would be raised. This is the hearing of the motion and preliminary objections.

Some of the objections raised by the 1st respondent are also raised by the 2nd respondent and so for convenience I will begin by addressing the 7 objections taken by the 2nd respondent, although not in the order they have raised. Counsel for the 1st respondent said he was associating himself with and adopting all the objections raised by the 2nd respondent as the 1st respondent's own.

Before I address the objection I wish to deal with two points raised by the petitioner. It was first said that in hearing this interlocutory application, although I exercise jurisdiction as an Election Judge, I have not abdicated my powers as a High Court Judge and can exercise original jurisdiction including that vested in the court by the Rules of the High Court, so that I should be prepared to exercise the powers to forgive and cure defects in the proceedings before me as allowed by the Rules of the High Court.

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To this I would say that while s 33(4) of the Act allows for any Judge of the High Court to hear all interlocutory matters in connection with an election petition, unless otherwise ordered by the Chief Judge, the jurisdiction and the powers that such a judge administers must be exercised in accordance with the law that confess that jurisdiction, namely, the Election Offences Act 1954, and with the amendment to s 42(2) of the Act, a judge hearing matters connected to an election petition can have recourse to the Rules of the High Court 1980 only in matters not expressly provided for in the Election Petition Rules. I do not think, therefore, that a High Court judge hearing interlocutory matters connected to an election petition has been given carte blanch to exercise powers under the Rules of the High Court 1980.

It was next said that the 2nd respondent should have filed an application under Ord 18 r 19 Rules of the High Court 1980 to raise the objections now taken instead of raising them as preliminary objections. The short answer to this objection is that objections to an election petition are issues of law which should be disposed of as preliminary objections for which no notice is required. This was decided in Norbert Chong Kai Chong v Mohamed Idris bin Hj Ibrahim & Anor [1980] 1 MLJ 316 by Harun J. It is a decision with which I respectfully agree. With that I turn to the objections raised.

The first objection was that the petitioner failed to comply with rule 4(1)(a) of the Election Petition Rules 1954 (hereafter 'the Rules'), by failing to set out his right to present this election petition within Section 34 of the Act. Section 34 identifies 3 categories of persons who may present an election petition. They are:

(a) some person who has voted or had a right to vote at the election to which the petition relates;

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(b) some person claiming to have had a right to be returned or elected at

such election; or

(c) some person alleging himself to have been a candidate at such

election.