Chief among them is that the trial judge Akhtar Tahir had given a benevolent construction to Hadi’s “corrosive statement” against the judiciary on his Facebook page on March 4.

“The learned judge had erred in law and fact to attach any sufficient weight to the respondent’s (Hadi) attack on the judiciary,” said Maklin Masiau and Lawrence Jomiji Kinsil @ Maximilhian in their memorandum of appeal filed in the Court of Appeal earlier this week.

By publishing a contemptuous statement, they said, Hadi cannot approach the court “with unclean hands” to strike out their suit.

On May 11, Akhtar allowed Hadi’s application to annul the suit, saying that Maklin and Lawrence did not have the locus standi and their action was frivolous and an abuse of the court process.

The judge also ordered Maklin and Lawrence to pay Hadi RM50,000 each in costs as he said their application choked the justice system with unnecessary litigation.

Akhtar said the duo should be blamed for “seditious tendencies” for resurrecting a matter which took place in 2016.

He said Hadi’s statement was directed towards Christian missionaries who allegedly paid money to convert people, and not Christians in general.

Maklin and Lawrence said Akhtar was also wrong to strike out their suit without giving due regard to the High Court Rules 2012 and refused to acknowledge it was public interest litigation.

They said it was also wrong for Akhtar to state that they were busybodies without good intentions.

They claimed the order to pay the costs was also oppressive, disproportionate and unfair to them.

Akhtar, they said, also erred in stating English case laws should not be blindly followed as submitted by their lawyers in support of their case as “we have a written Federal Constitution”.

In their suit filed last year, Maklin and Lawrence wanted a declaration that Hadi had committed an offence under Section 3 of the Sedition Act, and that he was unfit to hold any position in government.

In their originating summons, they claimed that Hadi had made a seditious statement in the PAS newsletter Harakah on Jan 18, 2016 against Christians and/or Christian missionaries.

An affidavit to support their action also said Hadi’s statement was published by FMT the same day.

In February, Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, who had led a nine-member bench, ruled that a provision in the Syariah Criminal Offences (Selangor) Enactment which criminalises unnatural sex was unconstitutional.

She said the Selangor state legislature was incompetent to pass the law since it was already on the Federal List.