Counsel Sangeet Kaur Deo said the compensation payable to her clients was not limited to a statutory claim under Section 7 of the Civil Law Act 1956 (CLA), as argued by the government.
Instead, she said the damages awarded reflected the gravity of the constitutional violation.
Altantuya’s killing was a blatant breach of her constitutional right to life, the lawyer said.
“It is a case involving a constitutional tort. The Federal Court had already dismissed the government’s application to strike out the suit, confirming that the cause of action and the government’s vicarious liability were valid,” Sangeet submitted.
She said trial judge Justice Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera had made it clear in his written grounds that damages under Section 7 of the CLA were confined to dependency loss.
However, she noted that the judge had treated the claim for conspiracy to injure and cause death as a separate and distinct cause of action – one that amounted to a constitutional tort, thereby justifying vindicatory damages.
“The learned trial judge found that when persons in authority misuse their powers to take a life, it constitutes a constitutional tort separate from a dependency claim.”
Sangeet stressed that vindicatory damages were essential not only to compensate the family but also to uphold the sanctity of constitutional rights and the rule of law.
She was responding to senior federal counsel Nik Noor Nik Kar who argued that vindicatory damages are not allowed under Section 7 of the CLA and should instead be treated as aggravated damages.
Nik Noor submitted that the RM5 million awarded was excessive and appealed to the court to reduce it to a reasonable amount of RM1.384 million.
“The aggravated damages should be RM1 million.
“On top of that, the family is entitled to only one-third of her monthly wages. As she was not working full-time, her income should be calculated at RM2,000 a month, multiplied by 12 months and a multiplier of 16 (as provided for in the CLA), which totals RM384,000,” he said.
A three-judge panel comprising Justices Hashim Hamzah, K Muniandy and Azman Abdullah reserved judgment after hearing submissions from both parties.
The case has been fixed for case management on Oct 27.
Gurdial Singh Nijar and Abraham Au appeared for political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda, one of the defendants.
Altantuya’s father Shaariibuu Setev, mother Altantsetseg Sanjaa, and son Mungunshagai filed the RM100 million civil suit in 2007, claiming there was a conspiracy surrounding her death.
In 2006, Altantuya, a model, was shot in the head in a forested area in Puncak Alam, near Shah Alam. Her body was then blown up using C4 explosives.
Vazeer, now a Federal Court judge, ruled three years ago that Altantuya’s family had proved their claim on a balance of probabilities against the government, Razak, and two former police officers Sirul Azhar Umar and Azilah Hadri.
The two policemen did not appeal the decision.