ASJA faces legal challenge ahead of elections

By Ot­to Car­ring­ton

The An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) is fac­ing the threat of High Court ac­tion weeks be­fore its No­vem­ber 29 gen­er­al elec­tions, as nine af­fil­i­at­ed ja­maats chal­lenge what they de­scribe as an at­tempt to dis­en­fran­chise mem­bers. The dis­pute has al­so raised ques­tions about the Elec­tions Com­mit­tee af­ter three of its six orig­i­nal mem­bers re­signed.

In a six-page pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter dat­ed No­vem­ber 2, at­tor­ney-at-law Shereen N Mo­hammed, rep­re­sent­ing the nine ja­maats, called on AS­JA to re­verse its de­ci­sion to down­grade sev­er­al mosques’ sta­tus, dis­solve the ex­ist­ing Elec­tions Com­mit­tee and sus­pend the elec­tions un­til the dis­putes are re­solved.