THE Court of Appeal today unanimously allowed Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad’s application to remove Judicial Commissioner Arziah Mohamed Apandi from hearing his RM5 million defamation suit against former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on grounds that the application had merit.
A three‑judge panel led by Datuk Dr Choo Kah Sing, sitting with Datuk Ahmad Kamal Md Shahid and Datuk Ong Chee Kwan, ordered that the case be remitted to the High Court to be heard before another judge or judicial commissioner.
The panel found that directives issued by Arziah during last year’s case management had created a real danger of bias because Dr Dzulkefly was not given an option to proceed with the hearing to present his case.
“The Judicial Commissioner was said to have stated ‘if the matter is not resolved, it will be struck out,’ which almost amounted to a threat… so, there was sufficient element of bias to create a real danger of bias,” Choo said.
Following the proceedings, Najib’s legal team confirmed that the defamation suit has been fixed for case management in the High Court tomorrow and that they will not file an appeal against today’s decision.
On 14 April last year, Dr Dzulkefly filed the application for Arziah to withdraw from hearing the matter, citing remarks she made at case management on 7 March and 7 April that showed attitude or created a perception of bias.
On 29 July 2025, Arziah dismissed the application, saying Dr Dzulkefly had failed to prove the existence of any real risk of bias arising from her earlier directions or from the fact that she is the daughter of Mohamed Apandi.
Dr Dzulkefly, who filed the suit in January 2022 in his personal capacity, alleged that Najib had uploaded a defamatory post on Facebook on 24 August 2020 concerning cronyism together with a screenshot of a Sinar Harian article dated 28 January 2019 with the plaintiff’s photograph.
He claimed the statement suggested, among other things, that he practised cronyism by offering positions or appointments to family members without objective assessment and merit for certain positions in government or private companies.
The plaintiff said Najib, as the defendant, published the defamatory post with the intention of attacking his character, belittling and embarrassing him and with political motives to defame and damage his reputation.
In his statement of defence filed on 29 March 2022, Najib contended that the post about cronyism had nothing to do with Dr Dzulkefly and instead referred to party coalitions within Pakatan Harapan. - February 24, 2026
