Court allows Jamal to defer paying RM300k to Teresa pending appeal

The Court of Appeal allowed Sungai Besar Umno division chief Jamal Md Yunos not to pay RM300,000 in damages to Seputeh MP Teresa Kok pending his appeal against her defamation suit.

The three-person bench chaired by Yaacob Md Sam unanimously granted a conditional stay against a High Court ruling that Jamal pays the compensation as well as RM50,000 in costs to the DAP lawmaker.

On July 26 last year, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur ordered the BN politician to pay the judgment sum and costs to Kok for his 2017 speech, in which he accused the Harapan lawmaker of abusing Yayasan Warisan Anak Selangor (Yawas) funds.

Kok has since initiated separate bankruptcy proceedings before the High Court in Kuala Lumpur to recover the money from Jamal, and the High Court had also denied Jamal’s application to stay the verdict pending the disposal of his appeal before the Court of Appeal.

During this morning’s Court of Appeal proceedings, Yaacob partly allowed Jamal’s stay application by granting a conditional stay, whereby the money is to be deposited into the bank account of Kok’s solicitor to be held as a stakeholder, pending the disposal of the main appeal against the High Court ruling.

“The money is to be paid into the respondent’s (solicitor) account within 21 days (from today) pending the disposal of the appeal. No order as to costs,” Yaacob told counsel Rejinder Singh and Sankara Nair, who are representing Jamal and Kok respectively.

Lawyer: Judgment sum a heavy sum

Earlier today during the hearing before the appellate bench which also comprised judges M Gunalan and Azimah Omar, Rejinder applied for the stay as the defamation judgment sum, coupled with costs, is a heavy sum and that the main appeal may be rendered nugatory (pointless) if the stay is not granted.

The lawyer submitted that Jamal is a politician and that a bankruptcy status would affect his ability to be allowed by the Election Commission to take part in forthcoming state elections.

Rejinder contended that there is a possibility that any handing over of the crowdfunded funds to Kok may not be recoverable if Jamal wins the appeal against the defamation verdict.

In rebuttal, Sankara argued that Jamal already has sufficient money via crowdfunding to just pay Kok while waiting for the disposal of the main appeal before the Court of Appeal.

Through the suit at the High Court on April 6, 2017, Kok claimed that Jamal defamed her via a statement issued during a news conference earlier on March 8 of the same year.

In her statement of claim, the plaintiff claimed that the statement was carried by the print and electronic media as well as on the defendant’s Facebook account.

Kok alleged that the statement, among others, implied that she had misused state government funds for herself.

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