GEORGE TOWN: The High Court here has dismissed a defamation suit brought by Lim Guan Eng against MCA vice-president Tan Teik Cheng and Star Media Group, publishers of The Star newspaper.
Justice Quay Chew Soon said an opinion piece Tan wrote in The Star about Lim and funding for a Chinese school last year was fair comment and not defamatory.
Quay ordered Lim to pay Tan RM20,000 and Star Media Group RM30,000 in costs.
Lim’s lawyer, K Simon Murali, said his client will appeal against the decision.
In his judgment, Quay said Tan had merely called on Lim to explain the donation for the name-change claim in his comment.
Normal folk would not pass judgment on Lim, the judge said, but would expect him to respond, given that the piece published in the “Letters to the editor” section of the paper ended with Tan calling for a response.
“A reasonable man would accept that politicising a Chinese primary school is what a politician such as Lim and from DAP, because it was an adversary of MCA, a Chinese-based party, may do under the circumstances.
“In fact, Lim agreed that he gave political speeches about DAP’s contribution to Chinese primary schools. It is also an agreed fact that Lim, in the run-up to the Johor state elections, said that during his tenure as the finance minister, he had allocated RM4 million to the school.
“These, to my mind, are acts of politicising. There is nothing, therefore, in the allegation of ‘politicising’ that had the tendency to expose Lim to hatred, ridicule or contempt in the mind of a reasonable man or would tend to lower Lim in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally,” he said.
Quay also said the matter was one of public interest as it was raised during the 2022 Johor polls, and the public had the right to be updated on the matter from the school, and from political leaders of both DAP and MCA.
“It has been shown that prior to the publication of the article, there was already extensive coverage by other media on the issue of the RM4 million allocation to the school and the change in name of the school. I am driven to the conclusion that the issues raised in the impugned statement were clearly matters of public interest,” he said.
Quay also found no elements of malice on the part of The Star in choosing to air the piece.
“The desire to injure must be the dominant motive. Mere dislike of Lim does not constitute malice as long as the defendant spoke honestly.
“Even if malice is proven against Tan in this regard, it is illogical to find The Star malicious simply on the basis that Lim and Tan are political adversaries,” he said.
Quay said the “Letters to the editor” section of newspapers was an open forum, where one is able to rebut claims made by another.
“I think it will be impossible for any news organisation to run the ‘Letters to the editor’ section if they are expected to verify the truth of every material they receive and intend to publish in that section. In these premises, I conclude that The Star is entitled to seek refuge under the defence of reportage.”
In the suit, Lim alleged that Tan had made a false claim in a comment published by The Star, which had questioned his motives for allocating funding for the school when he was the finance minister.
Tan had told the hearing he wrote the comment piece after Lim had allocated RM4 million to SJK (C) Kuek Ho Yao during the Johor elections in 2022.
He said Lim had claimed that MCA and its president, Wee Ka Siong, had done nothing for the school.
Tan also said he had been reliably informed that the school had, in return for the allocation, agreed to incorporate the name of a housing development into its name.
The school is now known as SJK (C) Kuek Ho Yao @ Eco Spring but retains its existing name in Mandarin.
Lim denied this claim, saying Tan’s comments were defamatory of him.
Located at UMLand Seri Austin in Johor, the school was named after philanthropist and Chinese community leader, the late Kuek Ho Yao, the brother of tycoon Robert Kuok.
Wee and former MCA president Liow Tiong Lai were among those who attended the school’s groundbreaking ceremony in March 2018.
The court had heard earlier that Kuek’s children did not have any objection to the name change. - FMT
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