Court denies senior judge's bid to stay inquiry against him

 

Court of Appeal judge Hamid Sultan Abu Backer failed to obtain a court order to temporarily stay the Judges’ Ethics Committee inquiry against him set for Thursday this week.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court this morning dismissed his stay application during an online hearing conducted before judge Mariana Yahya today.

In dismissing the bid, the court ruled that there were no special circumstances that justify the interim stay pending disposal of an appeal.

Hamid Sultan had sought the stay pending his appeal to the Court of Appeal against the High Court’s dismissal of his related judicial review application.

The senior judge’s counsel, Joy W Appukuttan, confirmed the outcome of the matter when contacted.

On Jan 21, the High Court dismissed Hamid Sultan’s judicial review leave application targeting the committee’s quorum.

On that day, the High Court also allowed the committee’s application to strike out Hamid Sultan’s other related legal action, namely an originating summons challenging the committee’s probe.

The probe is allegedly into an affidavit he made as well as a decision he delivered in a Court of Appeal case.

Senior federal counsel Ahmad Hanir Hambaly appeared for the committee in the online hearing.

Through the judicial review, Hamid Sultan sought to challenge the committee’s quorum as some of the judges there were allegedly linked to his affidavit over purported judicial misconduct.

Filed on Oct 20 last year, the judicial review leave application named the committee and its chairperson as the two respondents in the matter.

Earlier, on Oct 9 last year, Hamid Sultan also filed an originating summons against the committee, its chairperson and two lawyers over the investigation into the affidavit. The two lawyers are Sangeet Kaur Deo and Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla.

The judicial review leave application alleged that it would be “highly prejudicial, procedurally incorrect and a breach of natural justice” to allow judges, who were alleged to be part of the Bench that heard appeals linked to the cases of PKR president Anwar Ibrahim and the late veteran lawyer Karpal Singh, to be part of the committee probing the issue of Hamid Sultan’s affidavit.

Hamid Sultan’s affidavit contained allegations linked to the previous appeals involving Anwar’s sodomy case and Karpal’s sedition case, among others.

On Aug 16 last year, it was reported that Hamid Sultan had received a show-cause letter from the Judges' Ethics Committee, allegedly in relation to the affidavit.

Hamid Sultan had made several claims in his affidavit, which was filed in February 2019, prompting the then Pakatan Harapan government to mull a royal commission of inquiry.

However, the commission did not materialise as the Harapan government collapsed in late February last year.

Sangeet had relied on Hamid Sultan’s affidavit in her lawsuit against the chief justice over alleged judicial misconduct. However, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur dismissed her suit on Oct 22 last year.

Haniff Khatri had previously tried but had not succeeded in his bid to intervene in Sangeet’s lawsuit against the chief justice. - Mkini