[ Laman Ehwal Semasa ReformIS ]
Date: 02 Sep 1999
Time: 21:43:36
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Court Corruption Alleged CHIEF JUSTICE WENT FOR FAMILY HOLIDAY IN NEW ZEALAND By Richard Borsuk Staff Reporter of THE ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL
This article appeared in the 31 Aug 1999 edition of The Asian Wall Street Journal.
Defense for journalist adds "inappropriate relations"
KUALA LUMPUR - A Malaysian lawyer who represents businessman Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun helped write a court decision for a judge and "cultivated inappropriately close relations" with Malaysia's chief justice, a document submitted to the Kuala Lumpur High Court alleges. The document is the proposed amended defense for an Asian Wall Street Journal reporter sued for defamation by two companies controlled by Tan Sri Tan. It alleges that the lawyer, Dato and V.K. Lingam, placed the chief justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, in Dato Lingam's debt "notoriously." The defense document says the families of Dato Lingam and the chief justice went on a New Zealand holiday together in 1994.
In an "affidavit in reply" submitted to the court, the executive director of the two companies that filed the suit asked the court to dismiss the application to file an amended defense, which it described as "incurably defective."
In the High Court on Monday, Judge R.K. Nathan set a hearing on the application to amend reporter Raphael Pura's defense for Wednesday. Also, the judge rejected an application by Mr. Pura's lawyers for the judge to recuse himself from hearing the trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday. The defense lawyers contended the judge shouldn't hear the case because he had expressed opinions in another legal suit arising from the same magazine article that led to the suit against Mr. Pura.
In an Aug. 18 submission, the defense said there was a "real likelihood that a fair trial of the present action" couldn't be attained before the judge. But Judge Nathan said Monday there was "absolutely no need" to recuse himself, as the previous case has "nothing to do" with the suit against Mr. Pura.
Judge's ruling written by attorney VK Lingam In July 1996, Insas Bhd. and Megapoli tan Nominees Sdn. Bhd. filed in Kuala Lumpur High Court a suit accusing Mr. Pura of defamation of Tan Sri Tan based on comments attributed to the reporter contained in an article published by International Commercial Litigation Magazine in London in November 1995. They seek damages of 40 million ringgit ($10.5 million). In his defense against the charges, filed in September 1996, Mr. Pura stated he never made the comments that the British magazine attributed to him.
In the proposed amended defense, filed with the High Court last week, Mr. Pura's lawyers said he continues to deny saying what he is quoted as saying. It also says that if the words quoted in the magazine "in their natural and ordinary meaning mean that the reputation of Malaysia's justice system is falling and that the plaintiffs have been identified as contributing to that together with their lawyer . . . then the said words are true in substance and in fact."
The proposed amended defense discusses a libel proceeding brought by Tan Sri Tan, against M.G.G. Pillai, in which High Court Judge Dato Moktar Sidin awarded Tan Sri Tan 10 million ringgit. The document alleges that the 1994 judgment was "written in part by the plaintiff's counsel, Dato V.K. Lingam, and initially typed by the said Dato V.K. Lingam's secretaries, viz. one Jayanthi and Sumanthi." Further, the document claimed, the judgment was "corrected by the said Dato V.K. Lingam and the final draft dispatched" to the judge "on floppy disk." According to the document, the lawyer placed Chief Justice Tun Eusoff Chin in his debt by getting their families to holiday together in New Zealand. The holiday involved flights together to luxury resorts in Queenstown and Christchurch, the document alleged, where Dato V.K. Lingam and the chief justice "posed for pictures with their arms around each other and with each other's families." The document said the defense will make copies of the photographs "available on further discovery."
Plaintiff's attorneys unhappy ... In an affidavit to the court Aug. 28, Wong Gian Kui, the executive director of Insas and Megapolitan, criticizes the proposed amended defense on various grounds. The affidavit questions the submission of the proposal three years after Mr. Pura's original defense was submitted to the High Court, saying the "inordinate delay" in making the application has caused "serious detriment" to the companies that filed suit against Mr. Pura. It dismisses a statement by Mr. Pura's lawyers that the delay is attributable to the need to make comparisons and confirmation of the copies of documents to original documents. "A defendant does not take more than three years just to compare and confirm documents," the affidavit says. Mr. Wong's affadivit contends that the proposed amended defense was filed "for the sole purpose of adjourning the already fixed trial date and to cause grave injustice and prejudice to the plaintiffs."
It says the lawyers for Insas and Megapolitan, during a hearing at the High Court, will demonstrate that the proposed amendments to the defense "in fact leads to new issues being raised by the defendant."