Apex court rejects Anwar’s point on judgment in English

Anwar had argued that the judgment in his case, penned in English, was not valid. — file pic

PUTRAJAYA, Nov 24 — The Federal Court rejected today the preliminary point raised by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim 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.

“Therefore parties can appeal against judgment but not the reasons and statements within a judgment,” he said.

He added that all court papers filed in the case were written in the national language.

“The judgment does not go against Article 152 of the Federal Constitution and Section 8 of the National Language Act (NLA),” he said.

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.

In dismissing the appeal today, the court also ordered Anwar to pay the costs of RM70,000.

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