KUALA LUMPUR: The original Umno established in 1946 is still a legitimate party and Gua Musang member of parliament Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah said he is keen on reviving it.
Tengku Razaleigh, fondly known as Ku Li, made the stunning claim in the Dewan Rakyat today, saying the 1988 High Court decision where it ruled the old Umno as an unlawful society was wrong.
Tengku Razaleigh claimed that after discussing with several legal experts, he believed that the original Umno is still well and alive, describing the High Court's decision as "outlandish and absurd".
"There is no ambiguity. In any event, the administration of the Societies Act is in the jurisdiction of the Registrar of Societies (RoS), not the Courts.
"The application by the lawyers to declare Umno unlawful was an abuse of the judicial process, and the court should have rejected the application.
"The principle of nullity is based on the legal principle that no judgment can be binding if the court or authority which rendered it was without legal jurisdiction," he said in the Lower House.
Tengku Razaleigh cited a ruling by the Federal Court on Eu Finance Bhd v Lim Yoke Foo (1982) which stated that an appeal was somewhat useless when an order "is a nullity".
In the 1982 precedent, the judge presiding over the court concluded that when an order is a nullity, it can be successfully "attacked in collateral proceedings before any court or tribunal and when it is relied upon, it is subjected to collateral attack."
Therefore, the judge said that in collateral proceedings, the court may declare an act that purports to bind to be non-existent.
The principle of nullity, Tengku Razaleigh said, was based on the legal principle that no judgment can be binding if the court or authority which rendered it had no legal jurisdiction.
"The decision of the courts and the RoS are nullities on jurisdiction grounds, which is the fundamental principle that governs the Rule of Law.
"The law does not allow the High Court or the RoS to make a decision to declare Umno unlawful nor the RoS to deregister Umno because some branches are yet to be registered, which is an administrative act."
Tengku Razaleigh also claimed that the 1988 decision by the High Court was a political favour to the incumbent Umno leadership, headed by former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who was the party president at the time.
"It is now clear Umno was declared unlawful and then deregistered for the ulterior purpose of capturing its leadership undemocratically and against the law.
"It was a decision without any legitimacy whatsoever and an abuse of political power."
The 1988 judicial crisis began after an Umno election the year before, when Dr Mahathir received more than 100 nominations from party branches, while Tengku Razaleigh was nominated by slightly more than twenty branches to contest in the party's top post.
When the secret ballots were counted at the time, the result came as a shock to many who had expected Tengku Razaleigh to win by an overwhelming majority based on the number of nominations he had received from the party branches.
Instead, Dr Mahathir won by a narrow margin of 43 votes, and later, a civil suit was filed by 11 Umno members.
They sought a number of reliefs including a declaration that the entire 1987 election of office bearers at the Umno General Assembly was unconstitutional, illegal and therefore null and void and of no effect.
Despite being one of the main characters during the crisis that led to the disbandment of the old Umno, Tengku Razaleigh now said he wants to revive it and would welcome anyone who wants to join it.
"Umno has been punished unfairly. The ruling was not legitimate. Since this is a political issue, I believe it must be brought to Parliament.
"Maybe we need amendments to the Socities Act and other Acts to prevent such a thing from happening because we need to stop injuring our democracy."
The New Straits Times has been told that in 1988, the courts were allowed to make judgement in party affairs and the rule was only amended after that year.
At present, the Umno constitution disallows its members to bring any matters to the courts and Section 18C of the Societies Act also stated that members cannot bring party disputes to court.