Hearing of Khairy Jamaluddin’s appeal in Federal Court set for Sept 29

PUTRAJAYA, April 6 — The Federal Court has set September 29 to hear Khairy Jamaluddin’s appeal against the appellate court’s decision in striking out his appeal in a defamation lawsuit filed against him by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Lawyer J. Leela who is representing Anwar, when contacted, said the appeal was originally set for today but it was taken off the list and was replaced with a case management proceedings before deputy registrar Azniza Mohd Ali.

In April last year, Khairy, who is now Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, obtained leave from the Federal Court to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision which struck out his appeal after ruling that there was ambiguity in the notice of appeal.

Anwar, who is PKR president, sued Khairy, who was then Youth and Sports minister and the then Umno Youth vice-chief on March 7, 2008, alleging that Khairy had uttered defamatory words about him during a ceramah at Lembah Pantai on February 20, the same year and caused the publication of a video clip titled “Anwar and kin no threat” on news portals.

In Sept 2017, High Court judge Azizul Azmi Adnan ordered Khairy to pay RM150,000 general damages to Anwar.

Azizul had also dismissed Khairy’s application to amend his statement of defence to say that his remark was a fair comment.

In February 2018, the Court of Appeal struck out Khairy’s appeal after allowing Anwar’s counsel’s application to annul the notice of appeal.

In her decision, the then Court of Appeal judge who is now the Chief Justice Tan Sri Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat who chaired the Court of Appeal bench had said there were two separate orders made by the High Court, namely relating to the High Court award of damages and also on the dismissal of Khairy’s application to amend statement of defence.

She said the notice of appeal stated that Khairy was not satisfied with the whole decision of the High Court, but did not make any mention that he was also appealing against the High Court’s dismissal of his (Khairy’s) application to amend his statement of defence.

Justice Tengku Maimun had said the bench was bound by a Federal Court ruling that it was mandatory for a separate notice of appeal to be filed if there was a separate decision for orders made by the court. — Bernama