KUALA LUMPUR: Senior minister Mohamed Azmin Ali was not represented by any lawyer during case management today of a suit filed by 10 Gombak voters against their MP for alleged deceit and breach of fiduciary duty.
Lawyer Yohendra Nadarajan, who represented the voters during the case management held online, said deputy registrar Maslinda Selamat asked him to file an affidavit of service to show proof the legal papers had been served on Azmin.
Maslinda fixed another case management on Jan 14.
“I had expected a lawyer (for Azmin) to be present since the papers were served on Azmin on Dec 1,” Yohendra said.
According to court rules, Azmin has to engage a lawyer within 14 days of obtaining the cause papers and then file a memorandum of appearance in court.
This is to enable his lawyer to take direction from the court.
Yohendra said he would file for a judgment in default should no counsel come to represent Azmin on Jan 14.
The voters want a declaration that the senior minister for economy, as trustee, owes them a fiduciary duty as an elected representative.
They also want a declaration that Azmin committed the tort of deceit against them and that he had violated his constitutional oath under Article 59(1), read together with the 6th Schedule of the Federal Constitution.
In their statement of claim, the plaintiffs’ bone of contention is that Azmin made a representation that he was standing for election in 2018 to oust the then Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition and to free Malaysia of corrupt officials.
They said Azmin caused the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government in February and joined the Perikatan Nasional administration, which included BN and persons Azmin himself had acknowledged were “credibly accused of corrupt practices”.
They added that Azmin, the former PKR deputy president, had pledged to abide by the PH 2018 election manifesto to address, among others, the wrongdoings of BN when it formed the federal government.