Top court says Lingam video RCI findings ‘cannot be reviewed’

September 13, 2011

UPDATED @ 11:20:18 AM 13-09-2011

September 13, 2011

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 13 — The Federal Court ruled today that the findings of the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) into the controversial V.K. Lingam video clip cannot be reviewed as the commissioners merely made findings and it was not a decision.

Lawyer Datuk V.K. Lingam wanted the Court of Appeal to review the RCI’s findings that he had committed criminal misbehaviour which, he said, was a grave attack on his reputation, and that he had been adversely affected.

File photo of Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim with the video of Lingam talking on the phone discussing an appointment of a top judge in Petaling Jaya on December 14, 2007. — Reuters pic

The senior lawyer argued that although he had not been prosecuted, his reputation had been gravely tarnished and injured, and that it was his fundamental right under the Federal Constitution to safeguard his reputation.

Justice Raus Sharif ruled that Lingam and two former chief justices were not adversely affected by the findings of the commission.

Sitting with Raus, who is Court of Appeal president, were Chief Judge of Malaya Justice Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin, who chaired the three-man panel, and Federal Court judge Justice Abdull Hamid Embong.

On February 7, then-Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Alauddin Mohd Sheriff, leading a three-man panel of the Federal Court, unanimously ruled that the question of law posed by the commission for determination of the Federal Court was a novel one and of public interest.

He said the commission had met the requirements of section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act and granted leave to the commission to appeal on one question of law, that is on whether its (commission) findings under section 3 of the Commission of Enquiry Act 1950 were reviewable by way of judicial review.

The other members of the panel were Zulkefli and Abdull Embong.

On August 24 last year, the appellate court, in a 2-1 majority decision, allowed the appeal brought by Lingam and former Chief Justices Tun Eusoff Chin and Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim to set aside the High Court’s refusal to grant leave for their applications for judicial review to quash the commission’s findings.

Following the appellate court’s decision, the matter was remitted back to the Kuala Lumpur High Court to proceed to hear the merits of the trio’s judicial review application.

In its report, the five-member panel of the RCI had concluded that the video clip was authentic, and that Lingam was the person in conversation with Ahmad Fairuz over the appointment of judges.

The commission had also recommended that appropriate action be taken against six individuals, namely Lingam, Eusoff, Fairuz, tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, and businessman and former Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor for misconduct.

It also found that there was prima facie evidence to investigate the six men for offences under the Sedition Act, Official Secrets Act, the Penal Code and the Legal Profession Act.