Najib Razak Suing Malaysiakini over Slanderous Editorial Publication PM Najibs legal action against Malaysiakini over a defamatory editorial publication sparked huge conversation in the online sphere. As usual, opposing voices trumps over supportives , with Netizens from all over crying foul, saying that the PM is abusing the legal system to shut Freedom of Expression and Press Freedom. 1.) Development from the past - ISA to Sedition to Defamation This prompted me to think beyond the particular court case. What would Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah Badawi do if they were to be confronted with the same sort of slanderous remarks? Quick googling told me something thats not new : Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah had records of using the ISA to deter dissenters. from Ops Lalang and the Azan articles implicating Teresa Kok years ago, our former Government were quite readied to invoke draconian laws to really silence the opposition. Later on, the Government realized that using ISA is wrong and under Najibs government, it was abolished. However, the Sedition Act, despite undergoing a process of being replace by a National Harmony Act, were used to prosecute individuals who made sedition remarks. Different between Internal Security Act and Sedition Act is the one allows detention without trial while the other requires the accused to be brought before court to answer and defense himself. These two pieces of law has one thing in common : They have the legal capacity to strip a citizen off his basic freedom - they are put in detention and prison for what they say. Abolishment of ISA and alternative uses of Sedition act did not effective transform the nations legal stand on freedom of expression and press freedom significantly. It changes the process and made it more difficult for ones freedom to be stripped off having made remarks that are detrimental to the government, but still where the citizens are concerned, people can still be put in jail for what they say. Now, PM Najib has take a significant step to forgo the idea of putting people behind bar for what they say, slanderous or not. He uses the CIVIL LAW of defamation as mean to deter certain media from making slanderous and unfair remark. This is a huge leap from a more regimented form of society to a more liberal one : No one will end up in jail for what they say if theyre sued under the Defamation Act (the one that PM Najib uses against Malaysiakini). 2.) How does defamation Act works? I shall not explain the legality of this act the lawyer way. I shall spare you from all the legal jargons Ive learnt in law school. Lets make this as lay as possible. First, think of someone you know, who make a statement of fact against you, which are not true. Adam, is a con man. He used to cheat RM 500,000 out of my inheritance. He also cheated our common friends and had been living luxuriously out of these stolen money. you, Adam, were perplexed. First you barely know this guy, and now he is making a statement, say, in a press conference, or in facebook public profile, against you. The next thing you realized, is that people stop doing business with you, your orders dropped, your friends began to distance themselves from you, and you start to feel anguish and distress. Would you be kind enough to indulge this, and tell yourself Nah, its his freedom of expression, he should be able to say whatever he wants without fear or favour. Nope you wouldnt, because the statement actually compromises your integrity and reputation. your remedy in law, is Defamation Act. you Sue him, and ask for compensation for your anguish, and any losses derived from the compromise of your integrity and reputation. That was what Najib did. 3.) Statement of Fact? Theyre just comment of people in Mkini! why dont you sue these people instead? why sue Malaysiakini? well, this is the million dollar question that a JUDGE will have to decide in the court. NOT you. NOT me. PM Najibs legal team contended that the publication of these comment under the Your Say is an editorial publication : Mkini summarize and compiled these comments, and put in their page as editorial. Malaysiakini then argued that these were comments and theyve qualified themselves from it. I wouldnt say Najibs legal team is 100% correct, and Malaysiakinis rebuttal is 100% wrong. but then, that is WHY WE HAVE COURT SYSTEM right? Since when its your duty or my duty to interpret the law, and ADMINISTER legal remedy? Its the courts duty to interpret the law! The judge will decide whether these Your Say comment were statement of fact, liable to legal action, or theyre just statement of opinion, or Third party commentaries, which deters liability on Malaysiakini part. If the court decided that these were not editorial pieces and Mkini has no liability, the court will dismiss the case, and ORDER Najib to pay compensation to Malaysiakini lagi. Why everyone started to act like Judge already? Is Malaysia KINI GUilty for being sued? NO! Malaysiakini is presumed Innocent! its the duty of Najib to prove beyond balance of probability that Malaysiakini has defamed him. Until that happen, Malaysiakini has no liability! 4.) PM Najib should be prime ministerial! He should not sue! he should rebut in editorial form! NAH. thats a very skewed opinion. First, to sue or not to sue is his constitutional right, as much as they are yours too! Being a PM does not warrant his basic constitutional right, conferred by natural justice eroded. Secondly, can you imagine, if PM were to rebut slanderous remark by Mkini editorially, what kind of Floodgate would he open himself too, when PRESS and People are symbolically told that they are FREE to slander or libel the PM without ANY legal consequences? Thirdly, people and the press might develop this MARKETING tactic for their brand awareness : To get more audience and attention from the PUBLIC, LETS ride on the PMs office influence : We attack the PM, slander and insult him, so that he can rebut editorially. The moment he reply or rebut in editorial, my News outlet gets all the branding awareness, people knows about my brand. What happens to other press that didnt get such brand awareness? they follow suit. They publish at least one slanderous or untrue statement per day on the Prime Minister, so that he can rebut and bring brand awareness to them. Why should the PM be subjected to this kind of routine rebutal exercises just so that newsportal can get more visitors and sell more papers? PM has all the right as a citizen to use our law to create legal consequence for slanderous remarks hurled at him. He MIGHT NOT win the case. He might lose it but at least he maintains the right to sue. 5.) The Court is unfair, they will help the PM! quote me precedent to support that in the past 4 years where Najib is the Prime Minister? All i heard was Anwar Ibrahims You Ulang I Saman, Anwar Ibrahim Won his defamation suit against UMNO blogger Papagomo for RM800,000, Lim Guan Eng won his defamation suit against UMNO owned UTUSAN, etc. No less than 13 cases in the past 4 years, of which Opposition leaders won these cases most of the time. The Opposition leaders, that you sympathize so much with, have SO MUCH faith and trust in the court system, and had benefited from it through Defamation Law Suit. If they can have so much faith and trust in the system to protect them against defamation, why cant you? why cant you learn from the opposition leaders to trust the courts judgment to be fair when it comes to Defamation law suits? 6.) Because he is the Prime Minister! the court will favour him You might be right. you might be wrong. Najib might win, Najib might lose. We dont know yet. As a rational citizen, you ShOULD encourage this court case to happen, to test your hypothesis. Your hypothesis is that the court will rule unjustly to favour Najib. Your UMNO friends thought otherwise, and think that the Court will rule justly, favouring the rigtheous party. Why not let that happen first, in light of the lack of Precedent of Malaysians PM using the Defamation Act to Sue ? If the judgment were unfair, then condemn the court therein. DOnt be anticipatory. Dont be unfair to the court first. Oppositions leaders had so much faith on them. learn from these opposition leaders! You even see P.Klang MP from Pakatan Xavier Jayakumar sued Malaysiakini. Well are you prepare to say that they are oppressing the press too? Khalid Ibrahim, Anwar, Azmin Ali, Lim Guan Eng, they were all very Gongho in suing Press. would you accord them the same expectation that you are not imposing on PM Najib? 7.) The Country down South. Do i have to spell it out on how Singapore did it. They keep their Internal Security Act, and have been using it all the while. not only that, they also sue dissentors until they are bankrupt. Is this not the country you always benchmark Malaysia with? is this not the country where you say If singapore can do it, i dont know why malaysia cant? what if i throw you a hypothesis : Singapore can only achieve what they are now if they practice the Package Logic, that silencing Dissent the civil law way is part and parcel of their overall Governance? i dont know. i could be wrong. But i think we are far better than them in terms of dealing with freedom of expression. They still have the ISA. and they still sue. We dont have ISA anymore. and we just started to move away from criminal suit against dissentors to civil suit. You wanna credit the government for that a little bit? just a little bit? Conclusion let the PM Sue la. if you want to condemn the unfairness aspect of things, wait till the outcome first. Tell your conservative friends who blames the PM for not using ISA and Sedition act to chill. Tell them this is how freedom of expression is practiced responsibly. Give the PM his right to exercise his civil right conferred by the constitution, just like how you want such right of yours to be respected too.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 08:32:00 +0000
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