Ng Kian Nam, head of the MCA’s civil society bureau, said the attorney-general “deserves some rebuke as he is the initiator of the problem, having brought the Malaysian judiciary to shame and undermined freedom of speech in Malaysia”.
He urged the prime minister to reform the role of the attorney-general and separate his functions as the government’s legal adviser from his role as the public prosecutor. “Only in this way may the independence of our judiciary system and freedom of speech of our citizens be truly upheld.”
Ng also urged the courts to “carefully distinguish between criticisms against the attorney-general and the judiciary system in order to maintain the independence and authority of the judiciary”.
On Friday, the Federal Court imposed a fine of RM500,000 on Malaysiakini’s owner, Mkini Dotcom Sdn Bhd, after finding it guilty of scandalising the judiciary in publishing comments by five readers.
The comments were critical of the judiciary and judges, made reference to high-profile criminal cases, with one mention of the Musa Aman corruption case in which 46 charges were withdrawn by the prosecution, leading to his acquittal.
Ng said his analysis of the readers’ comments showed that they were more critical of the attorney-general rather than the judiciary. He said the judiciary should not be overly sensitive against interactive platforms on social media or make judgments that are too protective of the attorney-general.
Ng said defamation suits were a better, more transparent way to deal with those who went beyond the bounds of freedom of speech, as the Defamation Act provided for relevant action to be taken directly against those who made the relevant comments but not third parties.
He said the more critical issue at the core of the Malaysiakini case was why the contents of readers’ messages were judged as being in contempt of court.
He said the privilege of contempt of court was rarely invoked by Malaysian courts, and did not have an explicit threshold of conviction like defamation laws.
He said it is generally only used as a means of control in some ongoing cases in which any party is in an open court.