Guan Eng, who is also DAP secretary-general, then filed a leave application in the Federal Court in the hope of reversing the ruling made on Dec 21, 2016.
However, the leave application filed in January last year could not be heard as the Court of Appeal has yet to provide its written grounds despite lawyer Americk Sidhu sending three letters to the judges.
“I have sent another letter to the judges’ secretaries to make available the judgment as soon as possible,” he told FMT after a case management before a Federal Court deputy registrar today.
Another case management has now been fixed on March 12.
Americk said proceedings in the apex court could not be held as publishers New Straits Times Press (NSTP), Utusan Melayu (M) Sdn Bhd, Perkasa, its president Ibrahim Ali and Negeri Sembilan branch chief Ruslan Kassim need to first respond to his application for leave.
“They can only do so by first going through the written grounds,” he added.
A circular issued in 2002 by the then chief justice had given judges eight weeks to write the grounds of judgment after a party had filed notice of appeal.
Previously, it had been four weeks.
In the oral ruling in favour of the appellant, a three-man Court of Appeal bench, chaired by Rohana Yusuf, said the court was bound by an earlier ruling that a public official could not sue anyone, including the media, for defamation.
The other judges were Idrus Harun and Mary Lim.
In March that year, the Court of Appeal led by the same panel struck out Pahang Menteri Besar Adnan Yaakob’s suit against Utusan Melayu (M) Berhad as he had filed the case in his official capacity.
The court had accepted that the legal principle established in the Derbyshire County vs Times Newspapers Ltd case also applied here.
In that case, decided in 1993, the court had ruled that local authorities could not institute legal action based on criticism.
In November, 2016, during the appeal hearing, the appellants raised a preliminary objection that Adnan’s case applied to Lim.
“Having considered that case, we allow the appeal,” said Rohana, who sat with judges Idrus Harun and Mary Lim.
She said if not for Adnan’s case, the court would have dismissed the appeal and would have given Lim a reduced compensation of RM150,000.
The bench also set aside the RM550,000 damages awarded by the High Court.
In March 2015, High Court judge Nor Bee Ariffin had found the publishers, Perkasa, Ibrahim and Ruslan liable for defamation.
Ruslan had claimed Lim had leaked Malaysia’s secrets during his trip to Singapore with InvestPenang in 2011.
In May 2012, Lim filed the defamatory suit against Ruslan, Ibrahim, Perkasa, NSTP, its then group editor Syed Nadzri Syed Harun, Utusan and Utusan group editor Abdul Aziz Ishak.
In his statement of claim, Lim said Ruslan had published a statement on Perkasa’s website on Oct 1, 2011 asking businessman Mohamad Azman Yahya to explain his meeting with another corporate leader, Kalimullah Hassan, and a PAP senior leader in Singapore on Aug 12, 2011.
Lim said the statement implied that he was endangering national security by exposing the country’s secrets to Singapore.
The New Straits Times and Berita Harian, under the NSTP’s stable, and Utusan Malaysia (under Utusan Melayu) had published Roslan’s comment.