NFC granted leave to appeal in Nurul Izzah lawsuit

A three-member Federal Court bench granted leave to the National Feedlot Corporation Sdn Bhd and its executive chairperson Mohd Salleh Ismail to appeal in their defamation suit against PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar and the party.

Chief Judge of Malaya, Justice Ahmad Maarop, said the bench would allow two of the four questions of law in NFC’s appeal to be heard by the court.  

• In an impugned composite statement, some of which are defamatory and some not, was the trial judge correct in holding that the plaintiff was prohibited in bringing about the defamatory action by complaining only about the defamatory statement?
• In considering whether the sting of defamation outweighs the parameters of contextual interpretation, should the court only consider the following principles of interpretation of the true meanings of the impugned words: (a) impugned words that are complained to the relevancy of the rest of the publication in a contextual setting; and (b) treating the impugned words complained of as the bane and to discover, if relevancy is shown, if the rest of the other statements could be possibly be seen as an "antidote"?

Sitting with Justice Ahmad were Federal Court judges Justices Hasan Lah and Azahar Mohamed.

In court today, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, representing NFC and Salleh, argued against the High Court previously finding that Nurul Izzah was justified in making the statement against NFC, even if the words uttered were defamatory.

The Lembah Pantai MP had claimed that Salleh was privy to certain information as his wife was then Women, Family and Community Development minister.

"How can this be justification when the purported sentence could also be seen as another defamation? Furthermore, the purchase was made in 2011 when Nurul Izzah was already the MP," the senior lawyer said.

Nurul Izzah was sued for defamation after a press conference she held in Parliament sometime in 2013, in which she claimed RM71.4 million of government funds for the feedlot project were used as leverage to purchase condominium units in KL Eco City.

The High Court had dismissed Salleh and NFC's lawsuit in March 2016, with Justice Hue Siew Kheng ruling that Nurul Izzah’s statement was not defamatory when read as a whole, as it was made in her capacity as Lembah Pantai MP.

Last July, a three-member Court of Appeal bench led by Justice Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim upheld the decision, noting that the KL Eco City project is located in her constituency.

Razlan Hadri Zulkifli and Joshua Kevin, appearing for Nurul Izzah, argued against leave being granted, as both the High Court and Court of Appeal had made findings based on fact – and that the apex court should not interfere with the decision if there are relevant questions of law.

Razlan said the third and fourth questions of law are akin to complaining about the facts of the case and not the law.

The suit had been filed against Nurul Izzah because Salleh claimed ge had cancelled the purchase of the condominium units, and declined to use Public Bank's loan facility, before the PKR lawmaker made the statement in a press conference.

The NFC chairperson complained that the Nurul Izzah's statement made it seem as if he and his family had misappropriated NFC funds to buy the condominiums for their personal use.

He also claimed that her statement had tarnished his reputation and credibility as a highly educated businessperson and husband of Shahrizat, and caused him to be subjected to ridicule by the public. -Mkini