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Kota Kinabalu: The High Court here today struck out Warisan’s lawsuit to declare Sebatik assemblyman Hassan Gani Pengiran Amir’s seat as vacant after he left the party on Feb 25 of last year.

Judge Wong Siong Tung, in delivering his decision, ruled that: “An elected member of legislature should be free to act according to the best of his or her ability and his independent judgement should not be legally constrained by obligations to either his party or to the electorate or subject to the dictates of anybody.

“Any arrangement that fetters or deprives such freedom of elected members of the legislature will be contrary to public policy and unlawful.

“Any cause of action based on such an arrangement to deprive such freedom cannot be sustained in law. The appropriate penalty against the elected member of legislature for broken political promises is for the voters or electors to consider voting differently at the next opportunity.”

According to Hassan’s counsel, Tengku Datuk Ahmad Fuad T. A. Burhanuddin, the court allowed Hassan’s application to strike out the suit with costs to Hassan, the defendant, of RM5,000.