Senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan said Najib’s lead counsel Shafee Abdullah objected when he made an oral application for the order today.
“We applied for the order and asked that it remain in force pending the outcome of the hearing as it touches on sensitive issues,” he told reporters after a case management before Justice Hayatul Akmal Abdul Aziz.
He said the judge took note of the objection and directed the government to file a formal application by Jan 20.
Najib will be given a week to reply.
Meanwhile, Shafee said he objected to the application as the “horses had bolted from the barn”.
“It is an issue of public interest and has been debated widely in the past. Even the prime minister discussed it in and outside Parliament,” he added.
Lawyers appearing for MPs from Perikatan Nasional also said they intended to file a formal application to hold a watching brief in the judicial review proceedings, after their participation was opposed by Shamsul.
Akmal told lawyers Azhar Harun, Takiyuddin Hassan, and Zulkifli Noordin to file their papers by Jan 27, and allowed the government until Feb 10 to file its reply.
Shamsul also said both Najib and the government were directed to file all affidavits in the judicial review application by March 6 before the court proceeds to hear the application on its merits.
A case management will be held before a deputy registrar on March 11.
Last week, the Court of Appeal, in a split ruling, granted Najib leave to pursue his judicial review application.
The appeals court also permitted him to adduce new evidence to show the existence of a supplementary decree issued by former Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah placing him under house arrest when the merits of his case are heard in the High Court.
Justice Firuz Jaffril, delivering the majority decision, said Najib had fulfilled the criteria set out in the landmark case of Ladd v. Marshall for the introduction of new evidence.
He also noted that Najib had written to six of the seven respondents named in the appeal seeking to confirm the existence of the purported addendum but received no reply from any of them.
The six respondents were the home minister, the prisons commissioner general, the attorney-general, the Federal Territories Pardons Board (FTPB), the law and institutional reform minister, and the director-general of the Prime Minister’s Department’s legal affairs division.
The federal government was named as the seventh respondent in the appeal.
Justice Azhahari Kamal Ramli concurred with Firuz.
Justice Azizah Nawawi, who chaired the Court of Appeal bench, dissented.
The FTPB announced on Feb 2 last year that Najib’s prison sentence in his SRC International case had been halved from 12 years to six, and his fine reduced from RM210 million to RM50 million.
The former prime minister is currently serving his jail sentence at Kajang prison.
Najib filed his application for leave in the High Court on April 1.
He claimed that the former king, during an FTPB meeting on Jan 29, 2024, also issued a supplementary decree allowing him to serve the remainder of his reduced jail term under house arrest.
He said the FTPB had omitted to announce the terms of the supplementary decree, and that the government was in contempt for not complying with it.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said the house arrest decree, dated Jan 29, was sent to then attorney-general Ahmad Terrirudin Salleh.
Anwar said Terrirudin sent it to Istana Negara after Sultan Ibrahim ascended the throne as the 17th Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
“That’s the situation. We didn’t hide it,” he said at an event in Penang.