Court Dismisses Ex-AG Special Officer's Appeal In Lawsuit Against Rewcastle-brown

PUTRAJAYA, July 14 (Bernama) -- The Court of Appeal today dismissed the appeal by former Attorney-General (AG) Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali’s special officer, Mabel Sheela Mutthiah, against the High Court’s decision to dismiss her legal suit against Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown.

The suit is related to three articles published in Sarawak Report, including one titled "How AG’s Office Connived to Prevent a Second Post-mortem on Kevin Morais – Exclusive Expose".

A three-member bench chaired by Court of Appeal Judge Datuk Azizah Nawawi, in a unanimous decision, said that they were bound by this court’s (another Court of Appeal) ruling that the plaintiff (Mabel) must provide a Malay-language translation of the impugned defamatory article.

"In this case, there was no Bahasa Melayu translation of the impugned defamatory article, and that was clearly a non-compliance with Order 92. We find there is no appealable error by the High Court. The appeal is therefore dismissed with costs of RM10,000," Justice Azizah said.

The other judges on the bench are Justices Datuk Azizul Azmi Adnan and Datuk Ahmad Fairuz Zainol Abidin.

Mabel was represented by counsel Datuk David Gurupatham and R.Venothani while lawyer Guok Ngek Seong and Phyllia Lim acted for Rewcastle-Brown.

On May 2, 2024, Judge Datuk Raja Ahmad Mohzanuddin Shah Raja Mohzan rejected the suit with costs of RM15,000, after finding that the plaintiff failed to translate the allegedly defamatory articles into the Malay language.

He pointed out that the requirement for complete pleadings in the Malay language is tritely attributed to the language’s supremacy as a national language. 

Raja Ahmad Mohzanuddin said the relevant provisions are enshrined in Article 152 of the Federal Constitution as well as Section 8 of the National Language Act 1963/67 and Order 92 Rule 1 of the Rules of Court 2012. 

Mabel filed the suit against Rewcastle-Brown in 2019 over articles linking her to alleged text messages sent to the family of Morais, who was murdered in September 2015.

She denied the allegations in the article and initiated the lawsuit to seek damages from Rewcastle-Brown, as well as a court order for the article to be removed from the Sarawak Report website.

-- BERNAMA