Court strikes out Anwar’s appeal in defamation suit
PUTRAJAYA ((Oct 20, 2009) : Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today succeeded in his bid to strike out the appeal filed by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in a RM100 million defamation suit for calling him a homosexual.
The Court of Appeal unanimously granted Mahathir’s application and ordered Anwar to pay costs to him.
Justice Abdul Malik Ishak, who presided over the hearing with Justices Datuk Azhar Ma’ah and Datuk Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad, also dismissed Anwar’s application for an extension of time to file the memorandum of appeal in Bahasa Malaysia.
Justice Abdul Malik said the written judgment would be given in due course.
With the decision, Anwar’s appeal, scheduled on Nov 2, will now be taken off the list.
Anwar and Mahathir were not present in court. Datuk V.K. Lingam and R. Thayalan represented Mahathir, and Karpal Singh and S.N. Nair acted for Anwar.
Lingam argued that Anwar had filed the memorandum of appeal in English and not in Bahasa Malaysia and that this was in blatant disregard of the provisions of Article 152 of the Federal Constitution read together with Section 8 of the National Language Act 1963/1967.
He also contended that the appeal was defective and invalid as it was not signed by Anwar’s solicitor, Messrs S.N. Nair & Partners, and it was also filed without any specific date.
Karpal said he would get his client’s instruction whether to file leave to appeal to the Federal Court.
He argued that even though the memorandum of appeal was in English, the appeal would not falter as the use of the English language was not prejudicial or cause a miscarriage of justice in the case.
“In fact, the proceedings in the Court of Appeal is mostly in English,” he said
Karpal questioned why, during the last case management date on June 25, Lingam did not raise that he would file a notice of motion to strike out the appeal and the notice was filed just 11 days before the hearing proper of Anwar’s appeal on Nov 2.
He said that as a professional lawyer, Lingam should have informed the other party of his application.
Karpal said that while Lingam had stressed the need to use the national language, he had also not asked the court permission to use English in Lingam’s submissions.
Lingam replied that the case management to fix the hearing date of the appeal was in English and it was not his duty to educate lawyers on the next course of action.
On July 4, 2007, the Kuala lumpur High Court dismissed Anwar’s defamation suit with costs after it allowed Mahathir’s application to strike out the suit.
Datuk Tengku Maimon Tuan Mat, the judicial commissioner then, held that the suit was “obviously unsustainable” and “clearly an abuse of the court process”.
Following that, Anwar filed a notice of appeal against the decision.
Anwar had first filed the suit on Jan 26, 2006 claiming that Mahathir’s remarks were highly defamatory and mainly aimed at humiliating him in his personal and official capacity as former finance and deputy prime minister.
In defence, Mahathir relied on qualified privilege as the former prime minister and said the remarks were made at a conference organised by the Malaysian Human Rights Commission where qualified privilege was applicable as spelt out in the Defamation Act 1957. — Bernama