Yeoh seeks to nullify 4 testimonies backing UUM academic

Summary

• Hannah Yeoh seeks to strike down the four witness testimonies backing Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) lecturer Kamarul Zaman Yusoff’s defence against her defamation suit.

• The youth and sports minister’s legal team claims the defence testimonies went outside what was pleaded by Kamarul’s defence.

• The defendant’s counsel contends they were caught by surprise by the objection, and the civil court gave them time until tomorrow to rebut the objection.

Hannah Yeoh is seeking to strike out the testimonies of four witnesses backing Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) lecturer Kamarul Zaman Yusoff’s defence against her defamation suit.

The youth and sports minister’s counsel Sangeet Kaur Deo raised the objection before the Kuala Lumpur High Court presiding over the civil action linked to an allegation of an agenda to transform Malaysia into a Christian nation.

The legal dispute centred on Yeoh’s memoir “Becoming Hannah”, which the Segambut MP contended is a personal biography of her journey into politics with no agenda to convert Muslims to Christianity.

Sangeet informed judge Aliza Sulaiman about the plaintiff defence team’s objection over the testimonies of four witnesses, namely Ibrahim Abu Shah - a former Dewan Negara senator and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UiTM) vice-chancellor, Gabungan Nasionalis chairperson Aminudin Yahaya, former Institut Kajian Strategik Islam Malaysia executive Harizal Hassan, and freelance writer Helen Ang.

Sangeet contended that the four witnesses’ testimonies went outside the four corners of the pleadings of Kamarul’s defence, namely justification (ready-to-prove words in court), qualified privilege and fair comment.

However, the UUM lecturer’s lead counsel Khairul Azam Abdul Aziz informed the civil court that the defendant’s defence team was caught by surprise as Yeoh’s legal team only raised the issue today.

Khairul said the Bar Council rule on ethics states that the opposing side needs to be informed beforehand over any preliminary objection the other side wishes to raise.

The lawyer added that the defendant’s team also needed to be given reasonable time to prepare their counter-submissions against Yeoh’s objection.

Aliza then said she would hear Sangeet’s oral arguments today over the objection, and that Khairul is given time until tomorrow to prepare counter-arguments.

Defamation suit

Filed in February 2022, Yeoh’s suit is over Kamarul’s two Facebook posts dated May 10 and 17, 2017.

Incidentally, on May 17, 2017, Kamarul also lodged a police report against Yeoh over her book.

He accused Yeoh, who was then the Selangor speaker, of alleged proselytisation, claiming she was driving a “Christian agenda”.

The first Facebook post was titled “Hannah Yeoh contoh hipokrasi terbesar DAP”, while the second one was “Laporan polis saya terhadap Hannah Yeoh”.

Yeoh claimed that the two Facebook posts were very irresponsible, scandalous, vile and intentionally published by Kamarul to inflame hatred and anger against her.

She contended that he had abused his position as an academic to issue politically driven statements against her.

Through the writ of summons against Kamarul, Yeoh is seeking general, aggravated, and exemplary damages.

She seeks for the lecturer to make an unconditional public retraction of the alleged defamatory statements and an apology.

She also wants a court injunction to prevent him from further publishing any defamatory statements against her.

Justification

However, in his statement of defence, Kamarul raised the defence of justification.

Under Malaysian law for civil action, justification is a defence that the statements or allegations are true, and if proven successful in court, this would act as an absolute defence against the related lawsuit.

In relation to the defence of justification, the senior lecturer claimed that his Facebook post on May 10, 2017, was not referring to Yeoh but to her political party DAP.

Kamarul claimed that the posting was instead about how while DAP was championing secularism that separates politics and religion, there were allegedly also party leaders who were mixing politics and religion.

In also citing justification over his posting on May 17, 2017, Kamarul claimed that his police report was made after Yeoh lodged her own police report against him in relation to his Facebook post.

The lecturer alleged that his police report was over her book which was a purported attempt to proselytise Christianity to those outside the faith, including Muslims.

Not defamatory

Kamarul also denied his two Facebook posts were defamatory against Yeoh, further dismissing her claim that they were politically motivated.

Kamarul claimed that through the police report, he alleged that Yeoh may have committed an offence under Section 4(1)(a) of Selangor’s Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Amongst Muslims) Enactment 1988, as well as Section 298(A)(1) of the Penal Code.

Section 4 is in relation to the state law offence of persuading, influencing or inciting a Muslim to convert.

Section 298A deals with the federal law offence of causing disharmony, disunity, or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill will; or prejudices, or attempts to prejudice, or is likely to prejudice, the maintenance of harmony or unity, on grounds of religion, between persons or groups of persons professing the same or different religions.

Kamarul also cited qualified privilege and fair comment as a further defence against Yeoh’s defamation suit.

Qualified privilege is a defence that applies in a situation where the words were issued by a person who has an interest or a legal, social or moral duty to do so.

The defence of fair comment is one where the impugned statement was made as a fair comment (rather than as a statement of fact) over an issue of public interest.

Previously, Kamarul also sued Yeoh for defamation over her Facebook post. However, he withdrew the civil action.

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