Here's a report on the court case on Malaysian Insider, it seems to go into a bit more detail and mentions that there are 3 more cases to be heard?
PUTRAJAYA, March 18 — It is the end of the road for 10 Balok residents in challenging the decision of the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) to grant a temporary operating licence (TOL) to rare earth company Lynas Malaysia Bhd in Gebeng, Pahang.
This is because the group of residents led by Zakaria Abdullah failed in their application at the Federal Court here today to obtain leave to appeal to the Federal Court against the High Court and Court of Appeal’s decisions which did not rule in favour them.
The Kuala Lumpur High Court had refused to grant them leave to file a judicial review application to challenge the AELB’s decision to grant the TOL to Lynas Malaysia.
The residents were also unsuccessful in their appeal which was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on September 10, last year.
A five-member panel of the Federal Court led by Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Richard Malanjum today unanimously dismissed the residents’ application to overturn the decisions.
The panel, also comprising Federal Court judges Tan Sri Abdull Hamid Embong, Datuk Ahmad Maarop, Datuk Hasan Lah and Datin Paduka Zaleha Zahari, held that the residents failed to meet the threshold requirement under Section 96 (a) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 to be given leave to appeal.
The residents, represented by lawyer Tommy Thomas, had posed six legal questions for determination of the Federal Court.
Justice Malanjum, however, said there were no novel legal questions for the Federal Court to decide.
He said the law was settled for three legal questions and the other three questions were not questions that arose from the decisions of the subordinate courts.
On April 12, last year, then High Court judge Datuk Rohana Yusof (now Court of Appeal judge) had held that the residents’ leave for judicial review application was premature as they had not exhausted all their avenues, including appealing to the Science, Technology and Innovation Minister before they filed the judicial review application.
In their leave application to initiate a judicial review, the residents named as respondents the AELB, which oversees the production, application and use of atomic energy and radioactive material, the Director-General of Environmental Quality, and Lynas Malaysia Sdn Bhd.
They sought a certiorari order to quash the AELB’s decision to issue TOL to Lynas.
The residents also wanted an injunction to prohibit AELB from issuing any temporary or permanent licence to Lynas except or until the company presented a detailed Evaluation Report on the plant’s effects towards the environment to the Director-General of Environmental Quality and until the said report was approved.
In the proceedings earlier, Thomas submitted that the residents should be given leave to file a judicial review application as the matter involved the legal aspects of AELB’s decision.
“We say a detailed Environment Impact Assessment report is required,” he said, adding that the Lynas plant was going to affect thousands of people living nearby.
However, lawyer Tan Sri Cecil Abraham for Lynas argued that the High Court judge had correctly exercised her discretion to refuse leave to the residents to file a judicial review application.
He said as the matter involved scientific and technical issues, the residents must adhere to the procedure to appeal to the minister first before seeking leave to file a judicial review application.
There are three other suits filed by other residents with regard to the Lynas plant that are pending at the High Court in Kuantan and the Court of Appeal. — Bernama
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