SHAH ALAM, June 2 — Nigerian Simon Momoh and his Malaysian wife Low Kar Hui both shed tears of joy after winning his court challenge against the Immigration director-general’s April 2021 order to deport him this morning.

After the High Court quashed the Immigration director-general’s decision to cancel his spouse visa as well as the order to deport him, Simon could be heard expressing his happiness to his legal team comprising Datuk Gurdial Singh Nijar, V. Vemal Arasan, James Joshua Paulraj, and Abraham Au.

"First of all I want to say thank you to God that have made this possible, it’s been a very long journey for me and my wife. I thank my wife for standing by me, she knows me very well.

"I need to thank my team of lawyers, Prof, Vemal, James, and Abraham, they’ve been really, really supportive. I really need to thank the Foreign Spouses’ Group, Bina as well has been very supportive. St John’s Cathedral, the Archbishop — he has been very supportive, he knows me very well,” Simon told reporters outside the courtroom.

The others he named were in reference to Bina Ramanand who co-founded the Foreign Spouses Support Group which is part of the Association of Family Support & Welfare Selangor & Kuala Lumpur (Family Frontiers); the Catholic church at Jalan Bukit Nanas in Kuala Lumpur which he and his wife attends; and the Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur Julian Leow.

"And so personally I still need to thank my family as well, they have been there, my dad, and today happens to be my late sister’s birthday. So I just think that overall God has been there all through in making sure that justice is prevail.

"So I thank you very much all and I pray that no one would get into these kind of issues and everything is going to be alright,” he said.

Simon and Low said the past one year has been a long emotional journey for their family, especially when the father of two girls had to be separated from them for 40 days.

"Yes, we cried together, because it was not an easy journey. She never expected this to happen and I never expected it too,” Simon said when asked about both he and Low having cried immediately in an emotional moment after the High Court delivered the decision today.

"And actually when I was released from Semenyih, the first two nights, my daughter was always crying that she couldn’t sleep, so it was very difficult for me. I had to be sleeping on the floor so that I can be making sure that they are all alright, because I’m very close to my kids.

"I think it’s a very emotional time, and I just thank God that it didn’t go more than the way it is,” he said.

Simon was a stay-at-home father for his two Malaysian children aged nine and six. Low had been the family’s sole breadwinner as Simon was allowed to be in Malaysia on a spouse visa, a long-term social visit pass that disallowed him to work here.

With the High Court today ruling the immigration authority’s cancellation of Simon’s spouse visa as illegal, his lawyer Gurdial said this means that the visa’s original expiry date in October remains valid.

Gurdial said the court decision today also means that a non-citizen is not liable to be deported as long as the person holds a valid pass.

He explained that the High Court found that Simon as a non-citizen had not been presented before a magistrate within 14 days of his detention for a detention order, and that the Immigration director-general can only order for Simon’s deportation if he had committed an offence under the Immigration Act and not any other law, such as for drink driving, an offence under the Road Transport Act.

"So the director-general has no power to do that, and therefore his order is illegal and his act is ultra vires of his powers,” Gurdial told reporters.

According to Gurdial, there is a large number of non-citizens in the Semenyih immigration depot who are believed to be detained under similar circumstances without lawyers to represent them.

He urged the government to look into this as it would seriously impair their fundamental rights.

"Especially in the case of Simon Momoh, because he has a family with children, if we had not challenged it and if the court had not ruled in our favour, he will be parted from his family and his children forever more, he could only come in once a while and he could possibly be blacklisted, which means his family system is broken up, fragmented because of these kind of illegal orders,” Gurdial said.

Vemal said non-citizens should be aware that they could get deported for simply pleading guilty to offences.

"Also I think what happens when non-citizens get arrested, they do not know they will be brought to Immigration centre after that, because what usually happens, they tell you, just go plead guilty, one day jail, you will be in the court and released in the evening.

"But that is not the case, that doesn’t happen, that is what they tell non-citizens so that they plead guilty and make their life easier, and subsequently all will be arrested and deported. So I think everyone should be aware of pleading guilty, to know the consequences. Many magistrates had held in open court that they wouldn’t be deported, subsequently they were deported,” he said.

Simon’s case involved him still having a valid pass while arrested for an offence that was not under the Immigration Act, and pleading guilty and paying both the fine and serving the one-day jail sentence for a drink driving offence, before finding his pass cancelled and an order issued for him to be deported.

For more on Simon’s previous ordeal, read here on how his one-day jail sentence on March 15, 2021 became a detention of weeks, and what the court decided on April 23, 2021 when ordering his release, and his reunion with his young Malaysian family.

Simon had been locked up initially in the Kajang prison and later the Semenyih immigration depot for a total of 39 days from March 16 to April 23 until the court ordered his release.

The possibility of being deported back to Nigeria and separated from Low and their two young Malaysian children had hung heavy over their heads for the past year pending their court challenge, dissipating only today.

Even though Simon had a valid spouse visa that would only expire this October, the Immigration department had revoked it, based on a drink driving offence and ordered for him to be detained again to be deported from Malaysia.

Simon had also paid a RM12,000 fine and served a one-day jail sentence on March 15 for the drink driving offence.

But while he was challenging the Immigration orders in court, Simon was able to stay in the country with his young family under the Immigration Department’s special one-month renewable pass issued April 23, 2021.

This pass required Simon to go to Putrajaya every month to renew and pay for each renewal.