PUTRAJAYA, Feb 19 — The Federal Court in a majority ruling today decided that Malaysiakini is in contempt of the judiciary over the hosting of the contemptuous comments of five of its readers on the news portal’s website.

Contempt of court can be punished by imprisonment or fine or both, with Malaysiakini having previously noted that there were no legal limits to the imprisonment period or the amount of the fine.

Steven Gan, who is the news portal’s editor-in-chief, was present in the courtroom today when the Federal Court delivered its decision. 

Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Rohana Yusuf, who chaired the Federal Court’s seven-man panel, delivered the majority decision by six judges that found Malaysiakini guilty.

"Hence the first respondent (Malaysiakini) is found guilty of contempt of court, the second respondent (Gan) in our view cannot be held guilty for facilitating the publication,” Rohana said.

The five other judges who agreed with Rohana are Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Azahar Mohamed, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Datuk Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, Datuk Seri Mohd Zawawi Salleh, Datuk Vernon Ong Lam Kiat and Datuk Abdul Rahman Sebli.

Federal Court judge Datuk Nallini Pathmanathan also read out her minority judgement, where she said both Malaysiakini and Gan should not be found guilty of contempt of court.

The Federal Court later decided on a RM500,000 fine on Malaysiakini for contempt of court, with the amount required to be paid by next Wednesday. Malaysiakini this afternoon managed to raise the amount for the payment of the fine through a public donation drive, exceeding the target of RM500,000 in just mere hours.

On June 17, 2020, the Federal Court allowed the attorney general to start contempt of court proceedings against Malaysiakini’s operator Mkini Dot Com Sdn Bhd and Malaysiakini’s "Ketua Editor.”

The attorney general had argued in court papers that the comments contained words which the two respondents should have known were an insult to the judiciary in general and to the chief justice specifically, threatened public confidence towards the judiciary, insulted and tarnished the dignity and integrity of the judiciary.

The attorney general had in court papers claimed that Malaysiakini was considered to have published the comments by facilitating their publication, arguing that this amounted to a contempt of court due to the comments’ content and meaning, as well as due to the comments exceeding the limits of making sincere criticism and being a demeaning and unwarranted attack on the judiciary.

Malaysiakini previously said it had no intention to publish comments to scandalise the judiciary and that it had removed the comments within minutes of being alerted, with Malaysiakini and Gan previously also tendering their unreserved apology in court documents: "The respondents regret the tone and tenor of the comments and unreservedly apologises to this honourable court and the judiciary as a whole for having unwittingly allowed for their airing. Neither of us had any intention of scandalising or undermining the judiciary in any manner whatsoever.”

The five comments were posted under a June 9 news report titled "CJ orders all courts to be fully operational from July 1”, with Malaysiakini having previously said that it was alerted at 12.45pm on June 12 about these comments when police contacted them to notify about investigations regarding these comments.

In court documents, Malaysiakini previously said it was not aware of the five offensive comments previously as no readers had reported these comments and as the comments did not carry any of the "suspected words” that Malaysiakini’s filter could detect, further noting that the editorial team had immediately reviewed the comments upon being alerted by the police and removed the comments at 12.57pm the same day.

Based on court documents, it is understood that Malaysiakini had previously on June 26 provided details on the names and email addresses of the five readers who made the comments to the police and Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) with MCMC having requested for such details, and that Malaysiakini has since permanently banned the subscribers who posted the five comments.

The five offensive comments that Malaysiakini readers had made against the judiciary had included criticism against the courts over the acquittal of former Sabah chief minister Tan Sri Musa Aman of 46 corruption and money-laundering charges, despite the High Court’s June 9 acquittal of the politician actually being the result of the prosecution’s withdrawal of the charges.

The Federal Court’s majority and minority decisions were delivered physically in a courtroom in Putrajaya today, with those present in the courtroom being lawyers for Malaysiakini and senior federal counsels from the Attorney General’s Chambers, as well as Malaysiakini CEO Premesh Chandran and Gan.

Lawyers Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, Surendra Ananth, Khoo Suk Chyi represented Malaysiakini and Gan, while senior federal counsels Suzana Atan and S. Narkunavathy appeared on behalf of the Attorney General’s Chambers.

Others present in the courtroom were lawyers holding watching brief, with Nizam Bashir appearing for the Bar Council and for the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam), while New Sin Yew attended on behalf of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the National Union of Journalists Peninsular Malaysia (NUJM) and Yusmadi Yusoff attended for Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) and Gerakan Media Merdeka (Geramm).