A year on and no sign of written judgment in Guan Eng's suit

It has been a year since the Court of Appeal overturned a High Court decision in favour of Lim Guan Eng in his defamation suit against New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd, Utusan Malaysia and Perkasa - but the appellate court's written grounds of judgment are yet to be released.

This was revealed by the Penang chief minister's lawyer, Americk Sidhu, during case management today at the Federal Court registry.

“We are still waiting for the written grounds of judgment since the decision was made in December 2016,” Americk (photo) said, adding the next case management on Lim’s appeal bid has been fixed for March 12.

The written grounds are needed for the memorandum and records of appeal to be filed in the Federal Court.  

Normally, written judgments are released within six months of the delivery of the decisions. There is circular on this issued to judges but - as can be seen in the A Kugan death-in-custody case - the release of the written grounds can take longer.

In the landmark Dec 21, 2016, decision, a three-member Court of Appeal bench led by Justice Rohana Yusof, who sat with Justice Idrus Harun and Justice Mary Lim, unanimously ruled that the Penang chief minister could not, in his official capacity, sue the two media groups for defamation.

Justice Rohana said the panel made the ruling as it was bound by its earlier decision, in the case of Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd vs Pahang Menteri Besar Adnan Yaakob, that public officials cannot sue the media for defamation in their official capacity.

She said the court had accepted the principles decided in an English law case, Derbyshire County Council vs The Times Newspapers Ltd & Others (1993), which stated that local authorities could not institute libel action in their official capacity.

"On the issue of principle of law in our earlier decision (Utusan vs Adnan), having considered the appeals before us, we hold that the case of Utusan vs Adnan applies in this case," Justice Rohana said.

When the Adnan case was taken to the Federal Court on appeal, the menteri besar's appeal was allowed as the matter had not gone through a full trial, and the court, therefore, ordered the trial be held.

However, on the day of the hearing last year, Adnan (photo) settled the matter with Utusan, outside court.

This is unlike the Lim's case, which had already gone to trial in the High Court in Penang, with the court deciding in Lim's favour and awarding him a total of RM550,000 in damages.

The High Court ordered Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali and its information chief Ruslan Kassim to pay Lim RM150,000 in general and aggravated damages; for former NSTP group editor Syed Nazri Syed Harun and NSTP to pay RM200,000; and for Abdul Aziz Ishak and Utusan to pay RM200,000, also as general and aggravated damages.

The defamation suit pertains to the two media publishing Ruslan's article that claimed and implied that Lim is a “Singapore agent”.

The written grounds in Lim's case are needed as several politicians who are being sued by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, such as Tony Pua and former MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik, have cited the Penang chief minister's case as a precedent for their striking-out applications.

Both Pua and Ling had sought to strike out Najib's claims against them on similar grounds - that the prime minister cannot sue in his official capacity.- Mkini