Anwar says Federal Court insulted Malay language

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 24 – Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim accused the Federal Court today of insulting the status of Bahasa Malaysia as the country’s national language when it ruled that court judgments written in English were valid.

The Opposition Leader charged that the apex court’s ruling this morning would have far-reaching implications as it infringed the spirit of the Federal Constitution where it is stipulated under Article 152 that the Malay language is the country’s official national language.

“The court, I feel, made a decision that would have far-reaching implications. This is the first time since Bahasa Malaysia was christened as the national language that the Federal Court has allowed such an extremely loose interpretation on the use of the language,” he told reporters after chairing the Pakatan Rakyat leadership council meeting in Parliament this evening.

Anwar noted that PR was not of the opinion that the English language should not at anytime be used in courts but insisted that the “loose interpretation” had insulted the status of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language.

“If you study the court’s decision today, it validated all judgments made in English and infringed the spirit of the Constitution and the laws of the nation,” he said.

The Federal Court rejected today the preliminary point raised by Anwar that court judgments written in the English language were invalid.

Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Arifin Zakaria said that there was a distinction between judgments and grounds of judgment, adding that all court papers filed in the case were written in the national language.

Arifin also insisted that the judgement did not go against Article 152 of the Federal Constitution or Section 8 of the National Language Act (NLA).

The act, he said, allowed a court to conduct proceedings partly in Bahasa Malaysia and English, by way of its own motion or on application of any proceedings after considering the interests of justice in those proceedings.

However, he said the Federal Court viewed the use of the national language seriously and cited former chief justice Tan Sri Hashim Yeop Sani’s circular in 1990, which stated that at least one of the judgments must be in Bahasa Malaysia.

In this case, he added, it was understandable for the judge to write the judgment in English as the parties had sought leave from the court for the proceedings to be conducted in the same language.

The preliminary point was brought up by Karpal Singh, the lawyer representing Anwar, in the application for leave to appeal in the latter’s RM100 million defamation suit against former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Anwar filed suit against Dr Mahathir in January 2006 after the latter was alleged to have defamed him at the Malaysian Human Rights Conference on September 9, 2005.

“The fundamental issue to me here is that the decision today was too regressive in nature as it gave no recognition to the use of the national language in courts,” he said.

Anwar also expressed disappointment that the court had ordered him to pay costs of RM70,000 following its ruling, and claimed that this was an uncommonly high sum.

“I know that although the Federal Court is more supportive of Umno, the order to pay costs of RM70,000 is not fair. I was informed by my lawyer that in all the other cases, the costs ordered to be paid were much lower. No more than RM20,000.

“I think this is very disappointing. It looks now that I am forced to fund the coffers of these taukeh-taukeh alcohol,” he said.

Anwar added that he was yet to decide if he planned to appeal the apex court’s decision