.JPG "Simon Momoh's wife, Low Kar Hui, shows a picture of her husband on her phone at the Shah Alam High Court April 21, 2021. — Picture by Miera Zulyana")
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SHAH ALAM, April 21 — Nigerian man Simon Adavize Momoh yesterday filed a lawsuit to challenge the Immigration Department’s orders to deport him from Malaysia, a country where he has been living for the past eight years with his Malaysian wife and their two young children, his lawyers confirmed today.
At the same time, his wife Low Kar Hui had on Monday also written to the home minister to appeal for the reversal of the Immigration Department’s decision to cancel Simon’s spouse visa — which was still valid until October 2022 — and to also reverse the decision to deport him.
Simon’s lawyer V. Vemal Arasan said the lawsuit via a judicial review application was filed in the Shah Alam High Court yesterday, and that it was to challenge the decision of the Immigration director-general’s decision to cancel Simon’s pass and to deport him.
“The case management for that matter is on May 4. We filed a certificate of urgency but that was the latest date they gave us,” he told reporters when met at the Shah Alam court complex here.
Vemal Arasan said the judicial review was filed yesterday as he had only managed to get Simon to affirm his affidavit on Monday. Previously, the lawyer was not allowed to meet or have access to Simon due to various reasons given by the authorities such as Covid-19 concerns, and had only managed to meet Simon for the first time last Friday and for the second time this Monday.
Simon has been detained by Malaysian authorities for about 37 days now since March 15, even after he had paid a RM12,000 fine and served a symbolic one-day jail sentence for a drink-driving offence.
Simon is still detained at the Semenyih immigration detention centre.
Today was initially scheduled to be the Shah Alam High Court’s hearing of a habeas corpus application to challenge his alleged unlawful detention and to secure his release to enable him to be reunited with his young Selangor family.
But the hearing of the habeas corpus application has now been deferred to this Friday, as the government represented by the Attorney General’s Chambers said it requires time to reply to Simon’s affidavit on the habeas corpus matter. This affidavit was only affirmed by Simon on Monday when his lawyer was able to meet him.
Datuk Gurdial Singh Nijar, another lawyer representing Simon, explained that the judicial review application was necessary to ensure that he can remain in the country even if he is released from his prolonged detention.
“That judicial review is against the deportation, because they have made a decision to cancel his pass, and then pending that, to remove him, deport him.
“So even if he is released under the habeas corpus, they can say, ‘Oh, his pass is cancelled, so we have the right to remove him under that’.
“That’s why Vemal has filed the judicial review challenging that decision, stating that decision is wrong in law. So that’s also a very important second step that he has filed,” he explained to reporters when met.
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