In a letter dated June 7, lawyers Ngeow Chow Ting and Tan Chee Kian who represent the family of Tan Ah Meng, said they were unable to obtain documents such as the communication recordings between MH370 and the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA).
They were also unable to obtain the letter of agreement on the search and rescue (SAR) operation, government minutes of meetings with relevant agencies, internal memos and a SAR report.
The lawyers said the family members were seeking to use the documents in their lawsuit against the DCA, Malaysian Airline System Bhd (MAS) and the government.
“We applied for a court discovery for these documents, but the DCA director-general said he could not provide them because the documents are under the Official Secrets Act (OSA),” they said.
The lawyers added that the documents were important to the trial, and that the family members had the right to obtain details in all aspects regarding MH370.
Ah Meng, his wife Chuang Hsiu Ling and their eldest son, Tan Wei Chew, were among the 239 passengers and crew who vanished along with the plane during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.
The couple’s children, Wei Hong and Wei Jie, along with Ah Meng’s parents, Tan Hun Khong and Lai Chew Lai, and Chuang’s father, Hung Chien, filed a negligence suit against the government in August 2015.
They named MAS, its successor Malaysian Airlines Bhd (MAB), the DCA, the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) chief and the government as defendants.
However, the Federal Court removed MAB and RMAF as defendants last November, ruling that they could not be held liable.