An attack on the integrity of the Malaysian judiciary by way of a defence in a civil action by an English publisher has been rejected and ordered to be struck out by an English High Court earlier this month.

Justice Morland of the Queen's Bench Division had ruled that part of the defence used by Euromoney Publications Plc, the publishers of the International Commercial Litigation (ICL) magazine, must be struck out as the English courts had no jurisdiction to adjudicate such attacks on the independence and integrity of Malaysian judiciary.

The United Kingdom's The Times newspaper had reported on Nov 10 quoting Morland as saying that an English judge had no yardstick by which he could pass an opinion on these matters.

The application to strike out parts of Euromoney Publication's defence was made by Malaysian legal firm Skrine & Co and two Malaysian lawyers, Tommy Thomas and K Anantham.

Anantham is a partner at Skrine while Thomas is a former partner.

Contribution for settlement

Skrine, Anantham and Thomas are suing Euromoney Publications for a contribution arising from a settlement of a defamation matter after they were sued in Malaysia for several hundred million ringgit by a number of prominent Malaysian businessmen over an article in the ICL magazine.

The article, "Malaysian justice on trial", was written by David Samuels in November 1995 and carried comments made by Anantham, Thomas and few others on the Malaysian judiciary.

Following the publication of the article, which alleged that several Malaysian businessmen, through their lawyer VK Lingam, had judgments given in their favour due to the close relationship between Lingam and some judges, a host of defamation suits were filed in Malaysia claiming hundreds of millions of ringgit in damages.

Euromoney Publications is also facing several defamation suits over this matter at the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

The suits against Skrine, Anantham and Thomas were settled out of court and an undisclosed amount was paid by their insurers to the defamed parties. The five suits against them were then settled.

Skrine, Anantham and Thomas are now seeking about RM20 million in contribution from Euromoney Publications, two editors and Samuels.

Public policy defence

In contesting the application for the contribution, the English defendants relied on a public policy defence, alleging that the Malaysian judiciary lacked independence and impartiality in cases involving critics of the government.

The defendants claimed that the Malaysian law of defamation was applied to penalise dissent and stifle freedom of expression, usually by way of exorbitant awards of damages.

Morland had said that if the English courts were to decide on the integrity of the Malaysian judiciary, it would then be doing so in the risk of harming relations with a Commonwealth state with whom the UK has close trading relations.