The Kuala Lumpur High Court has allowed former finance minister Daim Zainuddin and his wife Na’imah Abdul Khalid’s application to amend the family’s judicial review and include relief of seeking the nullification of the criminal charges against the duo.
Judge Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh this morning permitted the amendment bid after hearing oral submissions from the family’s counsel Mervyn Lai and senior federal counsel Liew Horng Bin acting for the MACC.
The judge set March 4 to decide whether to grant leave to Daim and the family to proceed with the judicial review targeting the MACC probe against them.
If the leave is granted, the court will set a new hearing date to allow oral submissions of the merits of the judicial review.
The judicial review leave application was filed on Jan 10, before Daim and Na’imah were charged at the court on Jan 23 and 29, respectively.
The couple was charged over their alleged failure to abide by MACC notices to disclose their assets.
According to an affidavit in support of the amendment bid, the family’s lawyer Alicia Sabrina Gomez said they seek the additional relief because the civil action is targeting the validity of the same MACC notices which form the basis of the criminal charges.
“In the event the two above-mentioned Section 36(1) notices (framed under the MACC Act 2009) are declared void and quashed, the two charges which are predicated on non-compliance with those notices would similarly be void and bound to be quashed,” said Alicia, who is with the law firm Messrs Tommy Thomas.
‘Fishing expedition’
According to a copy of Daim’s affidavit in support of the judicial review, he contended that the MACC’s conduct was perplexing and deeply disturbing.
The commission’s probe was baseless and amounted to a fishing expedition, he added.
He also claimed that MACC did not disclose to him the nature of the offence that he was being investigated for since last year.
Daim said the graftbuster only informed him that the alleged offence was under Section 23 of the MACC Act 2009 for gratification.
He pointed out that he ceased being finance minister on May 31, 2001.
“Yet, in the Dec 18, 2023 raid (on Ilham Tower), the MACC was seeking documents from 2009 and those relating to the construction of Ilham Tower, which began in 2009 and was completed in 2015.
“I, therefore, believe that MACC did not, in fact, have any basis for believing that an offence was committed by me under Section 23 of the MACC Act for gratification in public office.
“MACC had thus embarked on a fishing expedition. This is a clear abuse of power. It is also unlawful,” Daim contended.
Pandora Papers
He said while the MACC cited the worldwide release of the Pandora Papers, containing files on offshore companies and assets linked to him and his family, as the basis for the probe against him, no investigation was carried out against other well-known figures named in the leak.
He noted that at least two sitting ministers were named in the Pandora Papers, but to his knowledge, MACC has not investigated or questioned them, nor were any action taken against them.
Through the affidavit, Daim said he was a fairly successful and wealthy businessperson before joining politics and holding public office as finance minister in 1984.
He left his legal career and went into business around 1969, and became involved in property development and banking. - Mkini
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