Ex-AG Apandi heads to Federal Court to overturn defamation suit defeat

December 7, 2023

Ex-AG Apandi heads to Federal Court to overturn defamation suit defeat

PUTRAJAYA: Former attorney-general Apandi Ali is turning to the Federal Court after the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal from a defamation suit involving a 2019 article on the 1MDB scandal written by DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang.

Apandi has filed five legal questions which he says merit a hearing of the appeal by the apex court.

The Federal Court will only hear a civil appeal on its merits if it raises a question of law which the apex court has not previously ruled on or involves an important constitutional question for which a decision would be to the public’s advantage.

In one of the questions, Apandi is asking whether acts of commission or omission in the exercise of his prosecutorial discretion under Article 145(3) of the Federal Constitution is justiciable.

The motion was filed last Friday, after a Court of Appeal bench upheld a High Court ruling handed down on March 23 last year dismissing Apandi’s suit.

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Justice Hadhariah Syed Ismail, who chaired a three-member bench, said the High Court did not err in law or on the facts when rejecting Apandi’s suit.

Hadhariah, who sat with Justices M Gunalan and Azmi Ariffin, said Lim had successfully raised the defences of justification and fair comment to ward off the suit.

She said the 1MDB financial scandal was phenomenal as it involved public funds and implicated then prime minister Najib Razak.

As an MP who was concerned with integrity, transparency and accountability, Lim had a moral duty to raise the matter, she said.

Hadhariah said Apandi, the attorney-general at the time, had been entrusted with the power to direct investigations to get to the bottom of the case and charge those responsible without fear or favour.

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“But instead, the plaintiff (Apandi) tried to impede and obstruct the investigation of the 1MDB scandal.

“His action and inaction were indeed unreasonable and fell short of public expectation,” she said, adding that Apandi was the author of his misfortune.

Hadhariah said Apandi had failed to show an iota of evidence to support his claim that he did not “aid and abet” Najib in the scandal.

The judge said the court accepted the lesser meaning ascribed by Lim to the term “aided and abetted”, namely that Apandi had used his office to cover up the scandal.

In that sense, the term was not defamatory of Apandi, she said.

Lim published the article “Dangerous fallacy to think Malaysia is on the road to integrity”, which was republished by Malaysiakini.

In his RM10 million suit filed in 2019, Apandi had alleged that Lim’s statement depicted him as someone immoral and unethical, without integrity, and had practised double standards while holding the position of attorney-general.