Dear All

We were today duly notified by the Registrar of the Court of Appeal that it will hear Anwar’s appeal on 19th March 2010 at 9am at Court of Appeal (COA) Putrajaya.

What is uniquely strange in the above instance is the UNPRECEDENTED manner in which the Court of Appeal has acted in its perceived alacrity and its super efficiency in fixing a hearing date EVEN before we, as solicitors, have filed a Petition of Appeal (POA). Indeed the COA has acted beyond its own Rules (Rules of the Court of Appeal 1994) (the Rules) which sets out the procedure clearly.

The Rules state that wherein upon the receipt of the Appeal Records, the Petitioner (DSAI) has 10 (ten) days to file into Court a POA and ONLY and ONLY after the filing of the said POA will the COA proceed to fix a hearing date of the Appeal.

In the current instance, I received the Appeal Records on 1st March 2010 from the High Court and according to the Rules as stated above I have 10 (ten) days i.e.until 11th March 2010, to file DSAI’s Petition of Appeal (stating the grounds). It is ONLY upon my filing of the POA shall the COA, in accordance with Rules, proceed to fix a date of the hearing of the Appeal.

In this case I have NOT filed my POA yet and to my sheer amazement, I was notified today by the COA that it has already fixed a hearing date which is 19th March 2010.

The COA has astonishingly “departed from established norms” in this appeal process involving DSAI. The unprecedented manner in which the COA has acted is disturbing and is outrageous.

It is noteworthy that when DSAI previously made various appeals to the COA and to the Federal Court by also simultaneously filing a certificate of urgency for an early hearing, I did not see any such super effiency as is in this instance. From the above actions of the COA, there seems to be a clear case of discrimination towards DSAI in the COA’s blatant disregard for the Rules as stated above and this is wholly unacceptable.