KUALA LUMPUR (July 1): The High Court on Friday (July 1) allowed an application by the prime minister and the government to strike out a suit by an individual, namely Mohd Hatta Sanuri, who sued them over the withdrawal of a review application over the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) decision on the Pulau Batu Puteh claim.

The decision was delivered by Justice Hayatul Akmal Abdul Aziz following Zoom proceedings where she ruled that the action by the government is non-justiciable as it concerns foreign policy or foreign relation.

In addition, the court also ruled that Mohd Hatta lacked the locus standi (legal standing) to bring the suit.

Following that, the court allowed the application by the government and the prime minister to strike out the suit, and ordered Mohd Hatta to pay RM6,000 costs.

The decision was confirmed to theedgemarkets.com by senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan, who is deputy head II of the civil division of the Attorney-General's Chambers.

Shamsul appeared with senior federal counsels Ahmad Hanir Hambaly and Liew Horng Bin, and federal counsels Erma Wani Ahmad Keflee, Mohd Faisal Md Noor and Saravanan Kuppusamy.

Mohd Hatta was represented by counsel Mohaji Selamat.

It is understood that Justice Hayatul Akmal made two consequential orders following the decision, namely that should Mohd Hatta appeal against Friday's decision, the terms of the protective order granted by the court on Jan 31 this year would be extended to the grounds of judgment, the notes of proceedings, video recording and the appeal record to be filed in the Court of Appeal — unless directed otherwise by the appellate court.

Secondly, the media may report a summary of the case and the decision but they are to observe the protective order in order to safeguard the secrecy of the documents/information disclosed by the government during the proceedings.

The government applied for the consequential order for the status of classified documents and top secret status of the documents and proceedings under the Official Secrets Act 1972.

In 2018, the then Pakatan Harapan government under then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad withdrew an application to overturn the ICJ's ruling awarding legal jurisdiction of Pulau Batu Puteh to Singapore before the case was scheduled to be heard on June 11, 2018.

This resulted in Mohd Hatta, 45, to file the suit on May 28, 2021 on his behalf and on behalf of the more than 32 million Malaysians affected by the withdrawal of the review application, which was made without discussing and tabling it first in Parliament.

In his statement of claim, he sought an order for the defendants to provide a written explanation as to why they withdrew the review of the ICJ's decision on June 1, 2018, when it was claimed that Malaysia had strong evidence to initiate the review which had been initiated and filed since Feb 3, 2017 by the then Barisan Nasional government.

Mohd Hatta also sought a declaration that the defendants were negligent and had committed treason, fraud and breach of trust against all Malaysians, including the plaintiff, when they dropped the review bid.

He also sought a declaration for the two defendants to pay compensation to each Malaysian based on the land value of Pulau Batu Puteh and based on the economic losses suffered by all Malaysians, including the plaintiff, equally, amounting to at least RM10 million each.

The government in March applied to strike out Mohd Hatta's suit, resulting in the decision on Friday.