Mohd Haaziq Pillai Abdullah said the trial has been fixed for four days from Oct 11.
“We will update the trial judge about the suit during case management tomorrow,” he told FMT.
Haaziq said the comptroller of the Terengganu royal household has also been informed about the case following a Court of Appeal ruling yesterday.
“We will go for a trial and have decided not to go to the Federal Court to appeal the ruling. It will further delay the case,” he said.
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal set aside a December 2019 High Court ruling that exempted Sultanah Nur Zahirah from giving evidence in the defamation action.
A three-member bench chaired by Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah said the Sultanah ought not to have pursued the application via Order 14A of the High Court Rule because the bane and antidote (sting and cure) raised by the defendants is an ingredient defence.
“The (Sarawak Report) publication must be read as a whole and the bane and antidote must be taken together. It cannot be truncated in the way the judge has done under Order 14A,” Zabidin said.
The then trial judge, Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim, who is now a Court of Appeal judge, had ruled earlier that in the face of the suit, the defendants had defamed the Sultanah.
The judge said that “in the minds of any reasonable person”, an impugned passage in the book “The Sarawak Report – The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose” had cast aspersions on the plaintiff.
The defendants were relying on the defence of justification, fair comment and qualified privilege.
Sultanah Nur Zahirah had filed the application for her suit to be decided by summary judgment under Order 14A.
She alleged that Rewcastle Brown had made a disparaging statement about her in the book, and claimed that it could be taken to mean she was involved in corrupt practices.
She said the alleged defamatory statement could also infer that she had interfered in Terengganu’s administration and had used her status to influence the establishment of the Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), which later became 1MDB.
She alleged that the statement also construed her as having helped Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, to become the adviser of TIA.
She is claiming general damages of RM100 million from each defendant.