KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 — Swatch Group’s suit against the Home Ministry for confiscating 172 watches from its Pride collection will come up for hearing on August 23.
The High Court was initially scheduled to hear the Swiss watchmaker’s leave application for judicial review today, but deferred it after the company made slight changes to its filing.
For judicial review applications, applicants must obtain leave of permission from the High Court before the actual suit can proceed.
Swatch Group filed on July 17 an application to make amendments to its court papers for the lawsuit.
It is understood that High Court judge Datuk Amarjeet Singh Serjit Singh today allowed the amendments to the court papers; the Attorney-General's Chambers made no objections.
Based on the application to amend the court papers sighted by Malay Mail, Swatch intends to ask for two additional court orders, namely a declaration that Section 16(2) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984 only authorises the Home Ministry's officers to search Swatch's stores in “exigent circumstances” or urgent circumstances, and an order to quash the decisions and actions of the Home Ministry officers on the searches of Swatch stores and seizures of the watches.
This is on top of the other court orders that Swatch is seeking in this lawsuit: an order to quash the Home Ministry’s seizure notices in May for the 172 watches worth RM64,795, a court order for all the seized watches to be returned within five days of the order, and court order for compensation (including in the form of aggravated and exemplary damages).
In today’s court proceedings, Swatch was represented today by Nizam Bashir and Kee Hui Yee, while senior federal counsel Nur Irmawatie Daud represented the government.
When contacted by Malay Mail, senior federal counsel Ahmad Hanir Hambaly@Arwi confirmed that the High Court allowed the amendments to Swatch’s lawsuit papers and also confirmed that the hearing for leave will now be on August 23.
On June 24, the Swatch Group (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd filed the lawsuit via a judicial review application at the High Court here.
It named the four respondents as the Home Ministry chief secretary, the Home Ministry’s enforcement division’s secretary, the home minister and the Malaysian government.
In previous court papers, Swatch said Home Ministry officers had from May 13 to May 15 raided 16 of its stores throughout Malaysia and seized the 172 watches featuring nine different designs.
The ministry issued seizure notices stating the watches as promoting or having “elements” of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), and giving the reason that the watches were in breach or suspected to be in breach of the PPPA.
Out of the 172 watches seized, a total of 143 units featured six designs from the Pride collection launched on May 4, 2023 and which had been advertised on Swatch’s website since that date.
The remaining 29 units featuring three other designs were from the previous years’ Pride collections and had been available for sale in Malaysia since June 2, 2022, or slightly more than 11 months before the Home Ministry’s seizures.
Swatch said it had not received any complaints from the public about any of the watches that were seized, and argued that these watches did not cause any disruption to public order or morality or any violations of the law since they were sold in Malaysia.
Swatch filed the lawsuit as it claimed that the Home Ministry’s officers had acted illegally, irrationally, with procedural impropriety and that their actions were allegedly disproportionate and for an improper purpose.
