PUTRAJAYA (Dec 7): Former attorney general (AG) Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali has filed five questions of law in his motion for leave to appeal against the dismissal of his defamation suit against Tan Sri Lim Kit Siang over the DAP stalwart's Facebook post on the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) fiasco.
The questions include if Apandi's actions taken as the AG, including the exercise of his prosecutorial discretion under Article 145(3) of the Federal Constitution, are justiciable.
The notice was filed last Friday by Apandi’s solicitors Messrs Saibullah MV Nathan & Co. This was confirmed by Apandi's counsels Rueben Mathivaranam and M Visvanathan.
Lim’s counsel Sangeet Kaur Deo also confirmed that the notice of motion had been filed.
In final civil appeals in the Federal Court, leave must first be obtained from the apex court bench in order for the merits of the appeals to be heard.
The High Court and the Court of Appeal (COA) had dismissed the RM10 million defamation suit filed by Apandi against Lim.
Apandi filed the suit in 2019 over Lim’s posting on the 1MDB scandal, where the DAP politician suggested that the former AG had abused or neglected his position in not charging former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and deciding to halt the probe.
He further complained that the word “aided and abetted” used by Lim in the article had put him in bad light, and suggested that he had assisted an offender.
Trial judge Datuk Azimah Omar, who is now a COA judge, in dismissing the suit ruled that Apandi seemed disinterested and contradictory while being cross-examined over the issue of the Saudi Arabian donation purportedly made to Najib.
The COA, which upheld the High Court decision, on Nov 2 this year ruled that the High Court had not erred in law or in fact when dismissing the suit.
COA judge Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail, who led a three-member bench, also said that Lim had successfully raised the defence of justification and qualified privilege, and hence there was no merit in Apandi's appeal.