The Federal Court today allowed lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah’s objection to Anwar Ibrahim’s appeal to recall Supt Jude Blacious Pereira.

With today’s decision, the prosecution’s appeal on the Sodomy II case will be heard in the Court of Appeal on Thursday and Friday.

Federal Court judge Suriyadi Halim Omar ruled that Anwar ( left ) has not exhausted his appeal with the Court of Appeal decision in recalling Pereira.

“The (Anwar’s) appeal is incompetent as the appellant is not completely shut out,” said Justice Suriyadi, who led the five-member bench.

This unanimous decision also saw the bench ruling the Court of Appeal decision as not a final decision within the realm of Section 3 of the Courts of Judicature Act.

The other judges sitting were Federal Court judges Ahmad Ma’arop, Hasan Lah, Abu Samah Nordin and Ramly Ali.

Anwar, in an immediate response, said clearly today's decision and the setting of the hearing dates were out to hamper his candidacy in the Kajang by-election.

“Initially the court had told us to vacate dates in April and having done so, it fixed Thursday and Friday as hearing dates (before the nomination day on March 11).

“If seems 'they' have used the courts for this purpose. If they want a political battle, do it in Kajang, not here in a court of law,” Anwar said.

He further pointed out his displeasure at the outcome today as his lawyer Karpal Singh had left, with Shafee not being able to reply to Karpal's submission.

“You saw this happening. Three times the bench asked and Shafee failed to give a satisfactory response,” he said.

Credibility in question

Anwar wanted to recall Pereira as he failed to gain admission as a practising lawyer at the Kuala Lumpur High Court after he was found to be an unfit and proper person to be admitted, after his credibility was put in question in a Suhakam hearing that was chaired by Shafee.

 

The point of law raised by Shafee as a point of contention was whether the appeal by Anwar could be made, since Section 3 of the Courts of the Judicature Act states that an interlocutory ruling cannot be considered a final decision that deprives the right of the appellant to appeal.

 

Shafee had submitted that the matter therefore cannot be heard before the court.

 

Karpal ( right ) submitted the matter can be heard by the apex court as the application to recall Pereira emanated from the Court of Appeal and not the High Court.

 

“What Shafee has cited as case laws are applications made from the High Court but this application was made at the Court of Appeal to recall Pereira,” he said.

 

Clearly the court can hear this appeal, as this was a decision made before the hearing of the prosecution's appeal and it may deprive Anwar's right to re-call Pereira, said Karpal.

 

“Furthermore, the application to recall Pereira was made at the Court of Appeal and this court can hear the appeal on its appellate function,” said the senior lawyer.

 

It was at this juncture that Justice Suriyadi and Justice Ahmad asked Shafee to submit on the matter raised by Karpal that the application was raised during the Court of Appeal.

 

However, Shafee ( left ) failed to provide a satisfactory reply resulting in the apex court taking a short break until the Umno-linked lawyer submitted some documents on further case laws during the break.

 

Karpal also criticised Shafee for making the application to strike out this appeal, as they have yet to submit the petition of appeal which is only due on Thursday.

 

Normally, court documents are filed before an application is heard but in this matter, Shafee or the prosecution's motion to strike down the appeal was heard first, without the petition of appeal containing the record of appeal being filed.

 

“This is a back-door approach taken by the counsel to try and dismiss our appeal,” Karpal remarked.

 

He further said the need to recall Pereira was because the evidence may have resulted in Anwar's defence not being called by the trial judge.

 

Despite Anwar's defence being called, the trial judge, Justice Mohd Zabidin Mohd Diah, ruled that it was unsafe to convict Anwar as there were problems with the integrity of the samples taken.

 

Karpal, on commenting on today's decision, said he would look into the apex court decision and do whatever was necessary.

 

Yesterday the Court of Appeal also dismissed Anwar's application to remove Shafee as lead prosecutor and described the application as vexatious and an abuse of the court process.