The High Court in Kuala Lumpur today set aside the attorney-general's application to cite Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng for contempt of court.

In allowing Lim's application, Justice Kamaludin Md Said, however, said the court disagreed with the contention of Lim's lawyers that the application for contempt should be filed in the court in Penang.

The judge allowed the application on the grounds that there was no proper disclosure by the attorney-general on the transcript of the purported press conference by Lim.

This was based on the two-page transcript of the press conference held last year that was presented by the attorney-general and which was obtained from an edited version of a video clip from The Star Online, as opposed to an 11-page transcript from the defence.

"I agree with the defendant that the AG had failed to make full disclosure to gain leave to initiate the contempt proceeding (before another judge).

"Hence, the court allows the defendant's application to set aside the contempt application," Justice Kamaludin (photo) said after hearing submissions from both sides. 

The judge made no order on costs.

Lim had been cited for contempt following his purported comments on the corruption and abuse of power charges against him.

On Sept 21 last year, Justice Hanipah Farikullah granted leave to the attorney-general to initiate contempt proceeding. Following that, Lim filed an application to set aside the bid.

In his decision, Justice Kamaludin stated that the attorney-general made the assertion of contempt after watching a video recording of Lim's press conference contained in a compact disc (CD) and reading an article by The Star journalist Logeswary Thevadas, on July 23, 2016.

The judge, however, noted that it is different from the unedited transcript provided by the defendant (Lim).

“I noted that some parts of the transcript contain statements that were not found in the plaintiff's (AG) transcript that the defendant was not making any remarks on the judiciary or connected with the judiciary, and he was in fact, talking about the investigation process involving the MACC, police and the prosecution (by the AG),” he said.

Produce the whole transcript

The judge also noted that the attorney-general did not reply to the defendant's contention to set aside the contempt by providing the full transcript of the press conference.

“In my opinion, the right procedure is to produce the whole transcripts of the CD which contains the statements allegedly spoken during the press conference and give particulars on which part of the statements allegedly contemptuous in nature.

“The plaintiff cannot pick and choose statements which favour him because there are other statements in the impugned press conference, if produced, can take away the sting of the alleged contemptuous statement and if read as a whole, it may not be contemptuous as what the plaintiff had perceived,” Justice Kamaludin said.

Without the facts being disclosed, the judge added that the earlier court which heard the leave application had no opportunity to analyse the facts properly.

Lim's lawyer Tommy Thomas argued that this is not a plain and obvious case, as the whole transcript of the press conference should have been produced during the leave stage.

“It is not like the case of the person throwing his shoe (slippers) at the judge where it is done in the face of the court. In this case, the AG only produced two pages of the transcript as opposed to 11 pages produced by the defendant,” said the senior lawyer.

Meanwhile, the MACC's appeal in the Lim and Phang Li Koon's case over a provision in the MACC Act 2009 which required an accused person to file his or her defence before trial, has been fixed for hearing before the Federal Court on Dec 14.