The Malaysian Bar - Raja Segaran versus Malaysian Bar

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Raja Segaran versus Malaysian Bar - Round 2

Contributed by Eric Chin

Wednesday, 16 August 2006 07:49pm

KUALA LUMPUR, Wed: The second day of the case of Raja Segaran A/L S. Krishnan v the Malaysian Bar (S2-23-33-2000) kicked off today at the Kuala Lumpur High Court (Civil Division) before Justice Hishamuddin Yunus.

Fourteen witnesses were subpoenaed by the counsel for each party from various publications in the country. Out of the 14 that were present today, only 4 were able to testify. The 4 were Claudia Theophilus then from the daily theSun, Ramlan Said and Carolyn Hong (then) from the New Straits Times, and Chelsea LY Ng from The Star.

For the benefit of those who were unaware of the background of this case, this matter arose out of the issuance of a letter dated June 8, 2000 by the Bar Council to the members of the Bar to consider resolutions to be tabled at an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Malaysian Bar, which was to be held urgently to deliberate and pass appropriate resolutions relating to certain allegations made by Datuk Seri Rais Yatim against the Chief Justice at the time.

The Plaintiff, in his capacity as a member of the Malaysian Bar, claimed that the Malaysian Bar had acted ultra vires for the following reasons:

(i) the Legal Profession Act 1976 (“LPA”) does not empower the Bar to hold such a meeting;

(ii) that the proposed Public Statement, Notice calling for the General Meeting, the Resolutions to be passed and the Extraordinary General Meeting itself breached specific provisions of the LPA and is unconstitutional, illegal and void;

(iii) that the proposed Public Statement, Notice calling for the General Meeting, the Resolutions to be passed and the Extraordinary General Meeting constitute contempt and exposes the members of the Bar to committal of contempt and expenditure of funds to defend against committal proceedings; and

(iv) that the action to issue a proposed Public Statement, a Notice calling for the General Meeting, the Resolutions to be passed and the Extraordinary General Meeting would expose members of the Bar to charges of sedition.

The defendant on the other hand, wishes to show that :-

(i) the Public Statement and notice calling for the General Meeting arose out of statements made by the then Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim, who was the de facto Minister of Law which were widely reported in local press;

(ii) the Malaysian Bar was entitled in law and in fact to issue and had duly issued the Public Statement and the Notice of the Extraordinary General Meeting;

(iii) the subject matter of the said Notices was already in the public domain by virtue of its extensive coverage by local print media; and

(iv) it has long been recognised that the Members of the Bar and the Bench are each an integral part of the administration of justice.

Representing the plaintiff were D.P. Vijandran and Rajo kuppan whilst the defendant was represented by Ambiga Sreenevasan and Ranjit Singh, assisted by James Khong, Wong Chin Keong and Lee Tze Jiun. The other counsel representing the Bar, Raja Aziz Addruse and Christopher Leong were not present today.

The line of questioning adopted by both the counsel for the defence and the plaintiff for the day was similar in that they were trying to establish the validity of the information contained in the various articles that were written by the individual authors.

The day’s testimonies started with Claudia Theophilus, who was asked to give an account of how she came about the information contained within her report that was published in theSun daily on the 7 and 9 June 2000. She confirmed that although some portions were derived from reports authored by other reporters, a large portion of the information contained therein was derived from the press conference held by the then Chief Justice Tun Eusoffe Chin at his office. The counsel for the plaintiff made an objection to the fact that the author could not produce any proof by way of her notes that the information contained therein was accurate and challenged the accuracy of what was termed “background information” that the author relied on as supplementary information in her report.

The presiding judge remarked that he saw no logic in this line of questioning by the plaintiff's counsel as his cause of action was based on a question of law and not a question of fact, a path he seemed to be taking with his line of questioning. The plaintiff’s counsel asked for the court’s indulgence in establishing certain facts of the case and the judge allowed it to continue.

The plaintiff’s counsel proceeded to clarify with Claudia the processes that press reports go through before it is published and established, for the court’s attention, a 4 stage process that included authors, editors, sub editors and senior editors before going to press. Shortly after this the court took a break for lunch at around 1.10pm.

When the court re-convened at 2.50pm, the hearing continued with Claudia’s testimony and the next 30 minutes were spent establishing the accuracy of the content of her report on Tun Eusoffe Chin’s press conference, a fact that Ms. Claudia confirmed.

Subsequently, Ramlan Said, was called to the stand and a similar line of questioning ensued. Ramlan, and the next witness to take the stand, Chelsea Ng, both confirmed that the contents of their reports published on the 7 of June 2000 were gleaned from the press conference held by Tun Eusoffe Chin at his office.

Additionally, the Defence called on Carolyn Hong to take the stand and establish that additional information contained in her report dated 8 June 2006 was accurate. She confirmed that all information contained therein was obtained from a telephone interview with Datuk Rais earlier that day. Chelsea was further questioned about the accuracy and validity of the information contained in her other reports related to the matter, namely her reports published on the 10 June 2000, 11 June 2000, 21 December 2000 and her news analysis dated 30 December 2000, all of which she confirmed was accurate.

The hearing was adjourned for the day at the request of the plaintiff’s counsel. The hearing is set to continue on 30 October 2006.