Justice See Mee Chun said the wife of former prime minister Najib Razak had filed her challenge out of time.
She said the time period within which the application should have been filed began to run at the latest on May 21, 2021 when present Attorney-General (AG) Idrus Harun issued a fiat appointing Sri Ram to prosecute Rosmah.
“There is no merit in the appeal and we dismiss it with costs of RM10,000 to be paid to the AG and public prosecutor,” she said.
Under procedural law, an application for judicial review must be made within three months of the communication of a decision to an aggrieved person.
Rosmah filed her application on June 24 last year.
The appeal was heard by See together with Justices Hanipah Farikullah and Che Ruzima Ghazali on May 18.
At the hearing, Rosmah’s legal team contended that the application was filed within the time permitted by law.
They contended that the application was filed after a Federal Court bench held on May 27 last year that an aggrieved party could not file a criminal motion to challenge the licence given by the AG to a private lawyer.
Lawyer Akberdin Abdul Kader told the Court of Appeal bench that the application was filed 28 days after the apex court’s ruling.
Senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan, however, submitted that Rosmah was charged on Nov 15, 2018. He said the judicial review should have been filed within 90 days of that date.
On Aug 30, last year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed Rosmah’s application for leave to commence judicial review.
Justice Ahmad Kamal Shahid accepted the AG’s preliminary objection that Rosmah’s application had been filed out of time.
As a result, the application for leave was also not heard on its merits.
In her application, Rosmah claimed that Sri Ram’s appointment as ad hoc prosecutor under Section 376(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code did not extend to her corruption trial.
Instead, she alleged that the former Federal Court judge was only appointed by then AG Tommy Thomas to handle the prosecution of 1MDB-related cases.
Rosmah sought a court order to set aside Sri Ram’s appointment as well as nullify the findings in her corruption case.
Sri Ram passed away on Jan 29.
On Sept 1 last year, then High Court judge Zaini Mazlan convicted Rosmah of soliciting RM187.5 million from former Jepak Holdings Sdn Bhd managing director Saidi Abang Samsudin through her former aide, Rizal Mansor, as an inducement to help the company secure the Sarawak schools’ solar power project.
She was also convicted of receiving bribes amounting to RM5 million from Saidi, through Rizal, at Seri Perdana in Putrajaya on Dec 20, 2016, and another charge of receiving another RM1.5 million from Saidi at Jalan Langgak Duta on Sept 7, 2017.
Zaini sentenced her to 10 years’ jail for all three charges but ordered them to run concurrently.
The court said if Rosmah failed to pay the RM970 million fine, she will have to serve another 10 years in prison after she completes her initial 10-year sentence.
The Court of Appeal will hear the appeal on July 11.
Lawyers Jagjit Singh and Azrul Zulkifli Stork also represented Rosmah while senior federal counsel Liew Horng Bin assisted Shamsul, who appeared for the AG.
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