PUTRAJAYA – The Court of Appeal here has deferred its decision to another date in former Baling MP Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim’s appeal in his defamation suit against Lim Guan Eng.
Justice Datuk Azizah Nawawi, who chaired the three-member panel, said the court needed time to discuss the matter and will decide the appeal on another date to be fixed later. The court then fixed May 24 for case management to set the decision date.
Justices Azizah, Datuk Seri Mariana Yahya, and Datuk Azimah Omar today heard submissions from Azeez’s lawyer Porres Royan and Lim’s counsel Datuk N. Mureli.
Azeez is appealing against the Penang High Court’s decision on December 11, 2020, which dismissed his defamation suit against Lim, a former Penang chief minister, in connection with Penang’s undersea tunnel project.
Azeez filed the suit in March 2018 claiming that Lim had issued defamatory statements during a press conference at the Penang Chief Minister’s Office on February 28, 2018, and during a Chinese New Year open house hosted by the Penang Development Corp on the same day connecting Azeez to a payment of RM3 million as consultation fees from the tunnel project’s developer.
He is seeking, among others, general and exemplary damages and other relief deemed fit by the court.
In the appeal today, Porres argued that high court judge Datuk Rosilah Yop’s reasoning in accepting Lim’s defence of justification was flawed and plainly wrong.
He said the judge failed to appreciate that Lim had not adduced any proof whatsoever of the truth of the imputation that Azeez had received money from the developer, Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd, in connection with the project.
He said the judge had found the statement made against Azeez was defamatory but she accepted Lim’s defence of justification and dismissed the former’s suit after finding among others that Lim had posed questions to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) as to why Azeez was not arrested.
Mureli, however, countered saying the statement made by his client was not against Azeez but was targeting other parties and MACC over the authority’s action to charge one person and not another.
He said the defence of justification applied to Lim as he was then Penang chief minister and had the duty to raise and clarify issues which were relevant and of the public interest. – Bernama, May 19, 2023
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