PUTRAJAYA: A seven-member panel of the Federal Court dismissed a review application by Malaysiakini to overturn a Federal Court’s decision which found the online news portal guilty for contempt over comments by its readers.
The panel, led by Justice Puan Sri Zaleha Yusof, held that the arguments raised in Tuesday’s review proceedings by Malaysiakini’s counsel Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar had been raised in the committal proceedings before the previous Federal Court panel.
She said the court were not persuaded by the submissions raised by the counsel on issues pertaining to allegation of breach of natural justice.
Justice Zaleha said since the matter is a public interest case, the court would not make any order on costs.
The other judges presiding were Datuk Zabariah Mohd Yusof, Datuk Seri Hasnah Mohammed Hashim, Datuk Mary Lim Thiam Suan, Datuk Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal, Datuk Rhodzariah Bujang and Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah. The court proceeding were conducted online.
On Feb 19, last year, in a 6-1 majority decision, a Federal Court seven-member bench led by Court of Appeal President Tan Sri Rohana Yusuf, found Malaysiakini guilty of contempt of court for facilitating in the publication of five readers’ comments and fined the company RM500,000. Mkini Dotcom paid the fine.
The Federal Court, on June 17, 2020, had allowed Attorney-General’s ex-parte application to obtain leave to commence committal proceedings against Mkini Dotcom Sdn Bhd, the company operating Malaysiakini news portal and its editor-in-chief Steven Gan, over its readers’ comments on an article published by Malaysiakini on June 9, 2020, entitled “CJ orders all courts to be fully operational from July 1” which was deemed offensive.
The Federal Court, however, found Gan not guilty of contempt of court.
In the review application filed only by Mkini Dotcom, the companysought to set aside the earlier Federal Court’s decision and sought for a re-hearing of the contempt proceedings.
