Lawyers representing  Malaysiakini  have written to the chief judge of Malaya's (CJM) special officer urging a rethink in allowing High Court judge Kamaludin Mohd Said to continue hearing Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s suit against the news portal.

Justice Kamaludin has been allowed by the judiciary to continue hearing Najib's suit against Malaysiakini despite him being transferred from Kuala Lumpur to Seremban, and the case has yet to be heard before him.

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

Law firm Kandiah Partnership representing Malaysiakini  had earlier written to Shazali pointing out that so far it was only on two occasions that Justice Kamaludin ( photo ) had sat down with the parties for case management.

 

“Our client is therefore puzzled by the reasons given in your letter dated March 28, as it conflicts with the reasons you stated in an earlier letter in that the directive for justice Kamaludin to hear the case is due to him having presided over the case management from the start.

 

“For your information, justice Kamaludin has only presided over case management on two occasions only, namely on Sept 3 last year and again on Nov 11, 2014. This is with regards to the application to recuse him.

 

“On other occasions, the case management was done before a deputy registrar and not before the judge,” the letter from  Malaysiakini 's law firm states.

 

In the March 28 letter, Shazali had written that based on court records, Justice Kamaludin had heard the matter on Sept 3 and Nov 11 last year while the March 16 letter stipulated that Justice Kamaludin had only handled case management from the start.

As a result of the conflicting reasons given, Kandiah Partnership said its client felt uneasy with the latest development in assigning Justice Kamaludin to hear the case.

 

“This is against the normal practice and for this reason we write in for the court to consider appointing another judge to hear the case so as to ensure the integrity of the judicial system,” the letter to Shazali read.

 

Recusal attempt foiled

 

Najib, who is Umno president, filed a suit  along with the party's organising secretary Abdul Rauf Yusof against Malaysiakini following the publication of two articles carrying readers' comments over the Terengganu imbroglio last year.

 

Malaysiakini  had attempted to have justice Kamaludin recuse himself when he was a judicial commissioner hearing the suit, on the grounds that he was not yet a confirmed judge.

 

As such, he does not enjoy security of tenure since the confirmation of judicial commissioners as High Court judges may depend on Najib in his capacity of prime minister.

 

However, as justice Kamaludin was confirmed as High Court judge before a hearing for recusal could be fixed,  Malaysiakini  withdrew the application.

 

The High Court in Kuala Lumpur has fixed June 26 to hear Najib's application to  strike out  a big portion of Malaysiakini's defence against the suit.

Editor's Note: Based on advice from our lawyers, Malaysiakini has disabled the Comments section for this report. We apologise for the inconvenience caused .