The Attorney General has locus standi to appeal against the High Court's decision to grant leave for judicial review in matters of public interest.

[1] Before turning to the issues central to this appeal, we shall refer to a notice under s 4 of the Thirteenth Schedule to the Federal Constitution published vide Gazette Notification PU(B) 410/2016 on 15 September 2016 (the Notice) as a convenient starting point in our judgment. Pursuant to the Notice, the Election Commission (the EC) has notified that it has reviewed the division of the States of Malaya into Federal and State constituencies in accordance with art 113, cl (2) of the and proposed provisional recommendations consequent to the said review (the proposed recommendations). Eligible parties are also apprised to the effect that they can make representations objecting to the proposed recommendations in accordance with s 5 of the said Thirteenth Schedule. Following the publication of the Notice, a body of 120 electors of parliamentary constituency P 121 Lembah Pantai, including the 11 respondents herein, had on 14 October 2016, submitted representations against the proposed recommendations. The EC, shortly after that, held a local enquiry on 8 November 2016, which is a mandatory requirement of s 5 of the Thirteenth Schedule to the upon the representations received against the proposed recommendations in respect of the constituency in question.

[2] One week after the local enquiry was held, the respondents filed this application in which the respondents, amongst others, sought leave to commence judicial review proceedings seeking to be granted an order of certiorari to quash the Notice and the proposed recommendations for the Federal constituencies in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur as reviewed by the EC in 2016 and for a declaration that the local enquiry carried out by the EC was unlawful. Leave was granted on 3 January 2017. The learned judge had also granted a stay of the Notice and process/proceedings/procedure of delimitation of all constituencies in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur until final disposal of the judicial review. This appeal by the Attorney General is against the said decision of the learned judge in granting leave given on 3 January 2017.

The High Court's Decision

[3] We could glean from His Lordship's brief decision that leave was granted because the application was not frivolous and that the grounds put forward by the respondents made out an arguable case the merits of which ought to be heard at a hearing of the substantive application. The learned judge did not dispute that the EC did not make any decision but merely at this stage in the enquiry, proposed recommendations. Nevertheless, the learned judge held that the work undertaken by the EC "goes towards that final decision by Parliament and is thus part of the decision-making process". Therefore, His Lordship said, should there be any flaw in the decision-making process, including the process by which recommendations were drawn up or proposals for recommendations were made, that process should be susceptible to review in the Court on an application of an aggrieved party.

Grounds For Judicial Review

[4] The application for judicial review was premised principally on the contentions that the Notice and the proposed recommendations:-

(a) were made without power as the condition precedent to the exercise of such power by the EC under art 113, cl (2) of the Federal Constitution was not fulfilled and were in contravention of ss 4(a) and 2 of the Thirteenth Schedule thereof respectively;

(b) were irrational and disproportionate as they were made without any reasonable or legal basis;

(c) were published by the EC when it was not lawfully constituted in acc