The Federal Court's rejection of an application to review the corruption conviction of former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim will have the effect of keeping the politician out of active politics until April 2008.

Anwar had completed serving the six-year sentence on April 14 last year, the date from which the ban on his political activities takes effect.

This morning, the Federal Court - presided by Court of Appeal president Abdul Malek Ahmad and Federal Court judges Siti Norma Yaakob and Alauddin Mohd Sheriff - unanimously ruled that there was no merit or special circumstances in Anwar's corruption case that warranted review.

They rejected the lengthy arguments submitted by Anwar's counsel Christopher Fernando and Karpal Singh, and stated that its earlier decision to uphold a High Court ruling that found Anwar guilty was in order.

They were also of the view that no miscarriage of justice had occurred at any time during the High Court trial or during the appeal process at the Court of Appeal and Federal Court itself.

"Having given our utmost consideration to all four motions before us, we find that there are no merits to invoke the exercise of our inherent powers under rule 137of the Federal Court Rules (to allow the review)," said Alauddin when reading his judgment, with which the other two judged concurred.

Anwar was found guilty of corrupt practices on April 14, 1999 and sentenced to six years' jail for having interfered with police investigation in relation to allegations of sexual misconduct that had been made against him.

A favourable decision by the court today would have allowed Anwar to return to the political scene immediately. However, he will now have to serve out the ban up to April 14, 2008.

The law prohibits anyone convicted from holding any political posts for five years from the date of completion of the jail term.

Anwar is presently recuperating in Germany after undergoing a surgery to correct a slipped disc. He had left for Munich on Sept 5, three days after the Federal Court quashed his sodomy conviction and freed him from jail where he had started serving the nine-year sentence.

Fresh evidence rejected

In his 22-page judgment, Alauddin dealt with Anwar's motion to adduce fresh evidence pertaining to a letter written by senior lawyer Manjeet Singh Dhillon to then Chief Justice Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah.

In the letter, Manjeet had complained about the conduct of Justice S Augustine Paul, the High Court judge who heard the corruption case.

Alauddin said that, before the court could invoke its inherent power to allow fresh evidence to be adduced at the appeal stage, it must first be satisfied that the evidence was not available during the trial and if admitted, could have materially affected the judgment.

He disagreed that the evidence the defence sought to adduce for the judicial review was "fresh".

(This touched on Manjeet's meeting with former Attorney-General (AG), the late Mohtar Abdullah, to discuss the alleged misconduct of two senior prosecutors Abdul Gani Patail (now the AG) and Azahar Mohamed.

(Manjeet claimed that Gani and Azahar has tried to procure fabricated evidence - on Anwar's alleged sexual misconduct with several women - from his client S Nallakaruppan.)

"The said new evidence was available throughout the trial itself. More importantly the trial judge (Paul) had rejected this evidence as being irrelevant. The Court of Appeal and the Federal Court upheld his finding. As this has no relevance to the charges faced by the applicant, we cannot see how it could have materially affected the result of the case."

He said the "purported new evidence" ought to have been contemplated upon by Anwar's defence team during the trial itself.

He also viewed that the attempt to introduce the evidence at this stage as an act to re-open, re-examine and review a decision that had been conclusively decided by the final court of justice.

Zainur's contempt proceeding

On Anwar's allegation of misapprehension of facts by Paul, the judge said this was not new evidence but an issue that went to the merits of the case, which should have been canvassed throughout the appeal process.

"Even if the purported misapprehension was a ground of appeal, it does not lend any weight against the charges as they were one of corruption and not relating to misconduct with women," said Alauddin.

"Finally we would say that there was no fraud or suppression of evidence and neither was there new evidence before the court which merits the court to entertain a re-opening or re-hearing of the case."

He also rejected Anwar's allegation that the Federal Court had earlier failed to fully consider the contempt proceeding against one of his lawyers, Zainur Zakaria, that had been initiated by Paul during the trial.

He said Paul's conduct against Zainur was not relevant to the charges faced by Anwar, noting that the contempt proceedings were separate.

"It was only against Zainur Zakaria and not (against) the whole defence team."

Alauddin also dismissed the defence argument that the proceeding against Zainur were an attempt to silence the lawyer from bringing up allegations against Gani and Azahar.

"There is no nexus between the allegation of fabrication of evidence and the corruption of appeal," he said.

Justice Siti Norma in her 17-page judgment dealt with technical arguments submitted by Karpal who claimed that the court's earlier judgment had no legal effect since it had been delivered pursuant to a provision of the law that impinges on the independence of judges.

She disagreed with Karpal, stating that Section 94(2) of the Courts of Judicature Act (under which the judgment was issued) does not allow the Chief Justice to impinge on the independence of judges.

"(The Chief Justice) is not, as Mr Karpal Singh wants us to believe, dictating how a judge should decide a case. He is not asking the judge to decide favourably for a given person or authority. He is exercising a function which the law allows him to do, (that is) to direct who should prepare and deliver separate judgments; no more, no less."

Jurisdiction issue

Justice Malek issued a 26-page judgment supporting his earlier decision, in which he had dismissed the prosecution's preliminary objection that the court has no jurisdiction to review an appeal that had been disposed of.

He said legal precedent in Malaysia and abroad clearly allows an apex court to re-open any matter it has already decided, if there is any allegation of injustice or abuse of the process of the court.

"It cannot be said that we do not have the jurisdiction as this has been repeatedly decided in a number of authorities before this, to hear an application brought before us (for a review) where it is found necessary to prevent injustice," he added.

Justice Abdul Malek Ahmad's judgment

Justice Siti Norma's judgment

Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff's judgment