The Chief Judge of Malaya, Zulkefli Ahmad Makinuddin, has maintained Seremban High Court judge Justice Kamaludin Md Said will hear Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s suit against Malaysiakini .

The reason given by the special officer II to the CJM, Shazali Hidayat Shariff, in a letter dated March 16, was that Kamaludin had handled case management of the case from the start.

This is despite Malaysiakini had earlier expressed surprise to learn that Justice Kamaludin, who was previously the Trial and Appeals division head of the Attorney-General’s Chambers, before becoming a judicial commissioner, will hear the case despite being transferred from Kuala Lumpur to Seremban earlier this year, and the case has yet to start before him.

Following Shazali’s letter, Malaysiakini ’s lawyers from the law firm of Kandiah Partnership have despatched another letter addressed to the CJM dated yesterday to point out the error that Justice Kamaludin had never been involved in the case management of this case, as the case was handled before a deputy registrar, and that all pleadings to the matter only ended in late February.

Kandiah Partnership further stated that Najib and Umno executive secretary Abdul Rauf Yusoh had never requested that the case be handled quickly, and in fact, the news portal also gave them more time for them to give their reply and defence to Malaysiakini ’s counter-claim.

“The directive for Justice Kamaludin to hear the suit is very peculiar and out of the ordinary of the usual practice in any case. Perhaps Justice Zulkefli may not have got the facts above and this shows there is no reason for the court to depart from the usual practice,” the letter from the lawyers stated.

“Hence we hope for an early reply on the matter,” Kandiah partnership states in the hand-delivered letter.

Normally the CJM oversees the cases handled by the judges in peninsular Malaysia. A copy of the letter was also handed to Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria and Federal Court judge Azahar Mohamed, the managing judge for civil cases.

Previously, it was reported that Malaysiakini had sought an explanation from Zulkefli on Justice Kamaludin’s insistence on hearing the case despite being transferred.

Suit over Terengganu imbroglio

Najib, who is Umno president, and Abdul Rauf  filed a lawsuit on the comments by Malaysiakini readers in two articles on the short-lived Terengganu menteri besar imbroglio last year.

The two articles are ‘A case of the PM reaping what he sows’ and ‘How much will Najib spend to keep Terengganu?’

 

Mkini Dotcom Sdn Bhd, the operator of the news portal, had on June 24 last year applied for Kamaludin to be recused from hearing the suit over concerns of bias as the legal action is initiated by Umno and it involved the ruling party and coalition.

The defendants are concerned that Kamaluddin, who was a judicial commissioner (JC) then, did not enjoy security of tenure since the confirmation of judicial commissioners as High Court judges may depend on Najib as the prime minister.

 

However, before the hearing for Malaysiakini ’s application for recusal was heard, Justice Kamaludin was confirmed a High Court judge after serving no more than two years as JC.

Besides this, it was reported that Najib had also applied to strike out parts of the news portal’s defence.