It is proving to be a frustrating affair for Tenaganita executive director Irene Fernandez in her appeal against an imprisonment sentence passed five years ago.

The migrant worker activist's appeal was set for case management today after missing documents that stumped her case from the start were recently recovered.

However, the lack of explanation as to how missing documents were recovered and the difficulty in reading the magistrate's handwriting continue to delay the case, which will now be heard of Aug 5.

irene fernandez case kl high court 110608 irene and puravalen Today, her counsel M Puravalen had asked Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Mohamad Apandi Ali to reveal the circumstances in which the missing documents were discovered but the latter could not give an answer.

The judge then read out a letter he received from the lower courts which merely stated that the documents were found.

However, Puravalen asked the judge to take action against parties responsible and an explanation for the recovery of documents must be put on record.

"Someone has to take responsibility for the delay and her predicament. It is somebody's liberty and life at stake. There must be action taken," he said.

The judge pointed out that this was an administrative issue and directed Puravalen to write to the chief justice and chief registrar about this.

"Judges do not deal with administrative issues and it was not within my power to take any action against anybody," he said curtly.

Time to type notes

On the typing of the proceeding notes, justice Apandi said the typist tasked to decipher the handwriting of former magistrate Juliana Mohamed needed a month to type out the proceeding notes.

"I was verbally informed that the magistrate had used her own shorthand and not the usual shorthand used by stenographers.

"In light of that, it is proper for case management to be postponed to a later date for us to see whether the appeals records are comprehensive or not," he said.

Puravalen also told the court that he will amend the appeal to include these events to substantiate their arguments that miscarriages of justice has occurred.

Justice Apandi subsequently set Aug 5 as the next hearing date and extended Fernandez's RM3,000 bail before adjourning the session.

On April 11, Puravalen and DPP Shamsul Sulaiman had expressed their concern and inability to proceed with the appeal because of the missing documents.

Apandi was then supposed to hear arguments from counsel if he could proceed with the appeal without these documents.

Missing documents found

However earlier this month, the missing document were found , thus resulting in the case management fixed today to set the trial for the appeal.

The missing documents include statements by three prosecution witnesses - district engineer Tan Onn Chin, former Tanjung Rambutan psychiatric hospital director Dr N Raman and psychiatric nurse N Vejayan - and an exhibit.

Fernandez was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment after being found guilty by the Kuala Lumpur magistrate's court of maliciously publishing false news.

In 1995, Fernandez wrote an exposé of conditions in immigration detention centres, in a memorandum entitled ‘Abuse, Torture and Dehumanised Conditions of Migrant workers in Detention Centres'.

She was arrested and charged under Section 8A(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 a year later. The maximum penalty on conviction is three years' imprisonment or a fine not exceeding RM20,000, or both.

Fernandez filed an appeal against the sentence which only resumed hearing this year after numerous postponements.