The student’s lawyer, Lim Wei Jiet, told reporters this after Justice Azizah Nawawi allowed part of their judicial review application today.
However, the court did not grant the four students’ bid to declare UM’s disciplinary proceedings as unconstitutional.
“The court ruling means that the four are innocent of the charges brought against them by the university. The decision made against them by the UM disciplinary committee will not be reflected in their student records,” Lim said.
No costs were ordered.
The three students — Chua Hun Ti, Lau Li Yang and Tan Jia You — were present for the court decision today. Another student, Ho Chi Yang, was not in court today.
All four were members of the University of Malaya Association of New Youth (Umany).
Tan told reporters that they were pleased with the court’s decision that they are innocent of the charge of indiscipline brought against them by UM.
“Although other decisions we sought were not allowed, this does not stop us from continuing to fight for freedom of expression on campus,” he said.
He added that they will continue to defend their case if UM wants to appeal against today’s decision by the court.
The four filed a judicial review in August 2016, seeking to quash the UM discipline committee’s decision in finding them guilty under Rule 3 and 11 of the UM Disciplinary Rules.
At a town hall meeting in October 2016, four UM students had held placards when 1MDB president and group executive director Arul Kanda Kandasamy was addressing students.
UM had presented three charges against them during the disciplinary proceedings.
The first was for creating indiscipline and causing disruption by raising placards with the words “1MDB Pulangkan Duit Rakyat” (1MDB return the people’s money) during the 1MDB Forum.
The second charge was for being detrimental to public order, decency and discipline by raising the placards.
The third charge was for interfering in an official university event with the words on their placards.
They were initially fined between RM200 and RM600 but the fine was reduced to only a stern warning after their appeals to the university’s Appeals Committee.
Court to hear students’ grievances for disrupting 1MDB meeting