A three-member bench chaired by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat said the trial judge had made a correct finding in law and in facts when dismissing Apandi’s RM10 million suit.
“The defendant (Lim) also successfully raised the defences of justification and qualified privilege,” the top judge, who sat with Justices Nallini Pathmanathan and Abu Bakar Jais, said in delivering the unanimous decision.
Tengku Maimun said the five leave questions posed by Apandi were not novel and did not warrant further review by the Federal Court.
“This is not a fit and proper case for leave to be granted,” she said.
The bench also awarded Lim, who was present in court, RM30,000 in costs. Apandi did not attend the proceedings.
Lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo appeared for Lim, while counsel Liew Teck Huat and Rueben Mathiavarnam represented Apandi.
The Federal Court will only hear a civil appeal on its merits if a question of law is raised which the apex court has not ruled on previously or if the case involves an important constitutional question for which a decision would be to the public’s advantage.
In one of the questions put forward, Apandi asked whether acts of commission or omission in the exercise of his prosecutorial discretion under Article 145(3) of the Federal Constitution were justiciable.
The Court of Appeal on Nov 23 last year upheld a High Court ruling handed down in March 2022 dismissing Apandi’s suit.
Justice Hadhariah Syed Ismail, who chaired a three-member appeals court bench, said the High Court had not erred in law or in facts when dismissing Apandi’s suit.
Hadhariah, who sat with Justices M Gunalan and Azmi Ariffin, said Lim had successfully raised the defences of justification and fair comment to ward off the suit.
She said the 1MDB financial scandal was phenomenal as it involved public funds and implicated then prime minister Najib Razak.
As an MP who was concerned with integrity, transparency and accountability, Lim had a moral duty to raise the matter, she said.
Hadhariah said Apandi, the attorney-general at the time, had been entrusted with power to direct investigations to get to the bottom of the case and charge those responsible without fear or favour.
“But instead, the plaintiff (Apandi) tried to impede and obstruct the investigation of the 1MDB scandal.
“His action and inaction were indeed unreasonable and fell short of public expectation,” she said, adding that Apandi was the author of his misfortune.
Hadhariah said Apandi had failed to show an iota of evidence to support his claim that he did not “aid and abet” Najib in the scandal.
The judge said the court accepted the lesser meaning ascribed by Lim to the term “aided and abetted”, namely that Apandi had used his office to cover up the scandal.
In that sense, the term was not defamatory of Apandi, she said.
Lim published the article “Dangerous fallacy to think Malaysia is on the road to integrity”, which was republished by Malaysiakini.
In his suit, filed in 2019, Apandi had alleged that Lim’s statement depicted him as someone immoral and unethical and without integrity, who had practised double standards while holding the position of attorney-general.