Pakatan looking to amend GPA

Hanipa: We will push for change to prevent govt from suing individuals for defamation

KUALA LUMPUR: The Pakatan government will push for a change in the law to prevent any government, whether federal or state, from suing individuals for defamation.

The move came following the Federal Court’s landmark judgment on Wednesday allowing the government to sue individuals for defamation. The judgment has since been criticised as curbing freedom of speech and expression.

“We are going to have a meeting and form a committee to study the matter,” said Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Hanipa Maidin.

“This includes taking into consideration recommendations made on the issue and the Derbyshire principle which was based on sound judgment,” he told reporters at the launching of the International Sports Law Conference held at the Asian International Arbitration Centre (AIAC) yesterday.

The committee will look at the Government Proceedings Act (GPA), a post-Federal Constitution law and the Derbyshire principle, a common law principle based on a British case that a public body has no legal standing to mount defamation suits.

Hanipa, who is the deputy minister in charge of law, said that he was quite shocked by the court’s decision.

“While the Government Procee- dings Act allows the government to sue, it has to be differentiated between defamation and other suits,” he said.

Hanipa, a former practising lawyer, gave assurance that the government was not in a hurry to sue anyone for defamation following the recent decision.

He cited Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as an example where the leader did not sue anyone for defamation while in office.

“I believe the government is not going to sue anybody for defamation.

“Knowing Tun Dr Mahathir, he is not fond of suing anybody for defamation,” he said.

Lawyers, politicians and civil groups have called for the GPA to be amended to prevent the government from filing defamation suits against individuals, which many say will deter the public from criticising the authorities.

Among them was constitutional lawyer Datuk Malik Imtiaz who said that allowing the government to sue for defamation would undermine the important aspect of democracy in this country.

“Given the decision of the court, it may be necessary for the Parliament to amend the GPA to restrict governments from suing for defamation to avoid this chilling effect,” he said when contacted.

In a unanimous decision on Wednesday, a five-man Federal Court Bench, chaired by Court of Appeal President Justice Ahmad Maarop, dismissed an appeal by former Kuching MP Chong Chieng Jen and ordered his case to be remitted back to the Kuching High Court.

The court affirmed a Court of Appeal ruling that public authorities could sue an individual for defamation, in the suit brought against him by the Sarawak government.

The Sarawak government and the state Financial Authority filed the defamation suit against Chong at the Kuching High Court in April 2013.

The suit was over his allegations of “RM11bil disappearing into a black hole” published in a Chinese national daily and a news portal, and in pamphlets distributed by Chong and the DAP.