In delivering the court’s unanimous judgment, Justice Azimah Omar said the High Court had erred when dismissing Yeoh’s suit in 2024.
The appellate court ordered Musa to pay Yeoh RM250,000 in damages.
Also on the panel hearing the appeal were Justices Choo Kah Sing and Shahnaz Sulaiman.
Azimah said Musa’s remarks, made at a Universiti Teknologi Mara forum six years ago, were defamatory against Yeoh and made her a subject of ridicule among the Muslim community.
Yeoh filed the suit in 2020 after Musa alleged that she was seeking to turn Malaysia into a “Christian nation”.
Musa told the forum that an unnamed group linked to DAP was trying to destroy Islam in the country, and claimed that Yeoh had written a book to “make this country a Christian country”.
Azimah said the judicial commissioner had “even tried to neutralise the sting from defamation” by pointing out that Yeoh won the Segambut parliamentary seat in 2022.
“Just because (Yeoh) survived (the effects of) defamatory remarks, it does not exonerate the defendant from liability,” she said.
Azimah said Musa had linked the “group” in question to Yeoh, insinuating that she was politically and religiously affiliated.
The court also found that the lower court had wrongly concluded that “low viewership” of Musa’s remarks, streamed live on Facebook, did not constitute defamation.
“It is still (a form of) publication, even if it was heard by one person. We fail to understand how the judicial commissioner justified the scale of coverage (to dismiss Yeoh’s lawsuit). This sets a dangerous precedent,” said Azimah, noting as well that the forum was attended by students and university staff.
‘Evidence’ by UUM lecturer mere hearsay
Azimah said while Musa had in his defence called Universiti Utara Malaysia lecturer Kamarul Zaman Yusoff to testify, the lecturer was not an expert witness and merely provided his opinions as evidence.
“The judicial commissioner contradicted herself by holding both that Kamarul was a witness of fact and that Musa could rely on (Kamarul’s) opinion in his defence,” she said, noting that Kamarul also lost a separate defamation case last year filed against him by Yeoh.
The court said the High Court did not properly address Musa’s defences on justification, qualified privilege and fair comment.
“There was no evidence tendered by the defendant (Musa) to show the (alleged) ‘Christianisation’. The defence also placed reliance on a witness whose testimony was hearsay,” she said.
She said there was no evidence that Yeoh had used her book, “Becoming Hannah: A Personal Journey”, to propagate her religion or destroy Islam.
Yeoh later expressed her gratitude for the decision to reporters, saying she had endured the effects of Musa’s defamatory statement for the past six years.
Lawyers Ambiga Sreeneevasan, Sangeet Kaur Deo and Lim Wei Jiet appeared for Yeoh while lawyer Nur Jehan Abu Bakar represented Musa.