KOTA KINABALU: Parti Warisan is set to re-look its "contracts" with assemblymen who defected after the snap state election in Sept 2020.
The move comes following the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s decision on Friday ordering Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin to pay RM10mil for breaching a bond with PKR following her involvement in the Sheraton Move in 2020.
"We will re-look all the cases especially after the High Court decision on Zuraida," Warisan secretary-general Datuk Loretto Padua said when contacted.
He said the party also wanted to study the grounds of the judgement before making any decision against the defected assemblymen.
"We have not gotten the grounds of the (High Court) decision. We will look from a different angle this time," he added.
Warisan lost 11 of the 23 seats it won in the Sept 26, 2020, election following the defection of elected representatives to parties under Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) led by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor.
Warisan candidates had signed contracts for their candidacy which included undated but pre-signed letters to vacate their seats if they quit to join another party.
The pre-signed letters to vacate the seats were not accepted by the state Speaker after the assemblymen informed the Speaker that they had no intention to vacate their seats.
Warisan subsequently filed a suit against Sebatik assemblyman Hassan Amir Gani who was the first to defect from on Feb 26, 2021.
In June 2022, Kota Kinabalu High Court judge Justice Wong Siong Tung declared that the undated and unsigned resignation letters were unlawful.
In passing the judgement, Wong said: “An elected member of legislature should be free to act according to the best of his or her ability and his independent judgment should not be legally constrained by obligations to either his party or to the electorate or subject to be dictated by anybody.
"Any arrangement that fetters or deprives such freedom of elected members of the legislature will be contrary to public policy and is unlawful," he added.
In Zuraida's case, Justice Akhtar Tahir said the bond signed by Zuraida on April 25, 2018 was a valid and binding contract.
