Justice Wong Kian Kheong said the High Court had a judicial duty under Section 316 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) to consider the merits of the case.
“(Otherwise) there would have been an abdication of the High Court’s judicial duty,” he said in a 65-page judgment setting aside the acquittal of Ramesh Rajaratnam, former executive deputy chairman of Malaysian Merchant Marine Bhd, for insider trading.
He said the High Court was also duty bound to consider whether the errors or omissions by the trial court had caused a failure of justice as stated under Section 422 of the CPC.
“An accused person may be wrongly acquitted or erroneously convicted on an appeal to the High Court against a lower court’s decision,” he said in the judgment uploaded on the judiciary’s website on Monday.
On May 6, Justice Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera led a three-member bench in allowing the prosecution’s appeal and remitted the matter to be heard by a new High Court judge.
A previous High Court (decision) had erred in acquitting Ramesh without considering the merits of the case, the panel said.
The other member of the bench was Justice Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim.
In his judgment, Wong said neither the prosecution nor an accused person should be penalised for errors or or omissions made by the trial court.
He said even though there was judicial copying in the sessions court’s grounds of decision, and it was a non-speaking judgment, the High Court committed a legal error in granting an acquittal.
“This is an error of law on the part of the High Court which warrants appellate intervention,” he said.
Wong said the bench considered the option under Section 60 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 of using its discretion to remit the case for the High Court judge to hear Ramesh’s appeal on the first charge based on its merits.
Ramesh’s lawyers had argued in the High Court that the sessions court judge did not conduct “any meaningful analysis or scrutiny of the evidence adduced”, adding that there had been wholesale copying of the prosecution’s written submissions, causing him “great prejudice”.
Ramesh was charged in the Kuala Lumpur sessions court on April 29, 2015 with three counts of insider trading under Section 188(2)(a) of the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007.
On Sept 11, 2019, the trial judge convicted Ramesh on all three charges. He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of RM3 million on each charge. The prison terms were ordered to run concurrently.
Insider trading carries a punishment of an imprisonment term not exceeding 10 years and a fine of not less than RM1 million.
On May 20, 2021, the High Court allowed Ramesh’s appeal and set aside the conviction and sentence on all three charges.
At the Court of Appeal, the Securities Commission Malaysia, with the public prosecutor’s consent, decided to pursue its appeal on one charge only.