1. ) LEONG MUN FATT 2. ) QUAH CHONG LAN 3. ) PUA KIM YING 4. ) PUA YU LEN 5. ) FOO CHIU BAN 6. ) LIU SIN 7. ) NG SOO LING 8. ) CHONG TIAN LIP 9. ) DAVID TAN ENG PIAW 10. ) LIM YEAN KING 11. ) LIM HOONG CHOO 12. ) QUAH KIAN SIANG 13. ) QUAH KIAN WEI 14. ) PUA EIU BOON 15. ) CHIA CHOON HOW 16. ) LIM TECK KEONG 17. ) LIM TECK SENG 18. ) WONG SUEN 19. ) LEONG MUN KIN 20. ) LEE WAI PING 21. ) PUA AI MENG 22. ) HENG SWE KEE 23. ) HELEN TAN MAY YEN 24. ) TENG TIONG YAN 25. ) CHIA CHA TSUN 26. ) HENG...

Case Significance

Illustrates that judicial review lies only against a final, operative administrative decision, so leave was refused where the applicants challenged the merely procedural step of allowing objectors to be heard at a local-plan inquiry, the plan itself remaining for the State Authority to determine.

This High Court decision refuses leave to apply for judicial review in a town-planning dispute over the rezoning of roughly 84 acres of land fronting the main Sabak Bernam-Klang road at Sekinchan, Selangor. The applicants, registered proprietors and representatives of the affected land, sought leave to challenge a decision permitting the first and second respondents to attend the local inquiry meeting (Mesyuarat Siasatan — the inquiry hearing) and to lodge objections to the draft replacement local plan (Rancangan Tempatan Penggantian — the replacement Local Plan). Under the earlier gazetted local plan the land had been zoned for commercial and residential use, and the applicants, together with a large body of supporters, wanted that zoning retained rather than reverted to agriculture. The court examined whether the decision to allow the objectors to attend and object was itself a decision amenable to judicial review. It held that it was not: allowing objectors to be heard at the inquiry stage was not a final or determinative decision on the replacement local plan, which remained a matter for the State Authority to settle at a later stage. Relying on authorities including Taylor's College Sdn Bhd v Ketua Pengarah Kesatuan Sekerja Malaysia and the reasoning in Australian Broadcasting Tribunal v Bond on the quality of finality required before a decision can be reviewed, the court warned that entertaining the application would fragment the administrative decision-making process and allow every step in the plan-approval process to be challenged. It found the challenge premature and accordingly dismissed the application for leave. The court also observed that a large number of proprietors and other individuals had supported retaining the commercial and residential zoning through public-view forms, while some parties wanted the area returned to its original agricultural zoning, and that permitting this challenge would let the applicants or any other party contest every intermediate step in the plan-approval process apart from the State Authority's own decision. The judgment is a useful illustration of the requirement that judicial review targets a final, operative decision rather than an intermediate procedural step in the making of a local plan.