A former secretariat head in the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) has turned to the Court of Appeal in her defamation suit against Sarawak Report founder Clare Rewcastle-Brown.
V Mabel Muthayyah's lawyers from law firm David Gurupatham & Koay filed the notice of appeal dated yesterday, targeting the May 2 Kuala Lumpur High Court decision that binned her civil action on technical grounds.
Rewcastle-Brown's counsel Guok Ngek Seong confirmed the matter, adding that his client will file a cross-appeal over the same May 2 ruling.
Mabel is appealing against the dismissal of the defamation suit on technical grounds, while Rewcastle-Brown is appealing against the portion of the civil court ruling that if not for the technical reason, the court would have found the whistleblower liable for defamation.
On May 2, judicial commissioner Raja Ahmad Mohzanuddin Shah Raja Mohzan denied the civil action by the retired Sessions Court judge over three articles, one of them being a 2015 Sarawak Report article “How AG’s Office connived to prevent a second postmortem on Kevin Morais - Exclusive exposé”.
The civil court said in allowing the defendant’s last-minute technical objections to the suit, the judicial commissioner said the plaintiff failed to translate two of the three articles in question into Bahasa Melayu, as part of the requirements for the suit’s amended statement of claim.
However, Mohzanuddin said if it were not for this technical objection, the civil court would have instead ruled in favour of Mabel against Rewcastle-Brown and ordered the whistleblower to pay RM1 million in damages.
Counter action
In July 2019, Malaysiakini reported that Mabel filed a defamation suit against Rewcastle-Brown over the whistleblower portal’s article.
In her statement of defence, Rewcastle-Brown relied on justification and qualified privilege to counter the civil action.
Morais’ remains were found in a steel drum after he was kidnapped from his car on the way to work in September 2015.
In July 2020, the Kuala Lumpur High Court convicted a former army doctor and five accomplices over his murder and sentenced them to death.
The Court of Appeal upheld their conviction and capital punishment in March this year. - Mkini
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