KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 — The High Court today fixed July 6 to hear UK lawyer Jonathan Laidlaw’s application to be allowed to practise in Malaysia in order to represent former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in the latter’s final criminal appeal at the Federal Court.
High Court judge Datuk Ahmad Kamal Md Shahid fixed this hearing date, after having consulted Laidlaw’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and the lawyers for the four respondents.
The four respondents are the prosecution in the SRC International Sdn Bhd case, the attorney general, the Bar Council and the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee, which are all objecting to the application.
On May 31, Laidlaw filed an application at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur to be admitted under Section 18(1) of the Legal Profession Act to practise in Malaysia as Najib wants to hire him for the final SRC appeal at the Federal Court, claiming to “possess special qualifications, experience and expertise which is not available” among lawyers in Malaysia.
Under Section 18(1), the High Court may admit a person — who would have been eligible to be admitted as a lawyer in Malaysia if he was a Malaysian citizen or permanent resident — to practise as a lawyer here, for the purpose of any one case and if certain conditions are fulfilled.
The conditions required to be fulfilled under Section 18(1) are if this person has — in the court’s opinion — special qualifications or experience not available among lawyers in Malaysia for the purpose of that particular case, and also if he has been instructed by a lawyer in Malaysia to act for that case.
The case management before Ahmad Kamal was carried out after Laidlaw’s application was transferred to his court, following High Court judge Datuk Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh’s decision this morning to voluntarily remove himself from hearing the case.
All parties and the High Court itself had agreed to accommodate the common hearing date of July 6 for Laidlaw’s application.
Before the High Court fixed the July 6 hearing date after consulting all the lawyers, Shafee had informed the judge that he would not be in Malaysia during July 8 to July 27 for an extremely important reason and that this had been planned over two years, with Shafee indicating readiness to have the hearing as early as July 6.
For Laidlaw’s application, he was represented today by Shafee, Wan Aizuddin Wan Mohammed, Syafiqah Sofian and Wan Arfan Wan Othman.
The prosecution handling Najib’s SRC appeal was represented today by lead prosecutor Datuk V. Sithambaram and deputy public prosecutor Mohd Ashrof Adrin Kamarul, while the attorney-general was represented today by deputy public prosecutor Donald Joseph Franklin.
On June 13, Mohd Ashrof — who is part of the prosecution’s team in Najib’s SRC appeal — had already filed an affidavit to oppose Laidlaw’s application, arguing that Laidlaw does not have special experience not available locally and that Shafee is better equipped to represent Najib in the SRC appeal.
The Bar Council’s lawyer Datuk Bastian Pius Vendargon told the court that an affidavit would be filed to object to Laidlaw’s application. Lawyer Annemarie Pravina Vendargon also appeared today for the Bar Council.
Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee’s chairman Vivek Sukumaran, who is also its lawyer, also informed the court that an affidavit would be filed to oppose the application.
Later when met by reporters, Vivek explained that the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee intends to oppose Laidlaw’s application to be admitted as a lawyer here to represent Najib, pointing out that lawyers in Kuala Lumpur are capable of handling the legal issues in Najib’s case and that a foreign lawyer was not needed.
“Our position is we will oppose this application. As the state bar chair, I’m duty bound under Section 73 to safeguard the interests of the members of the KL Bar.
“So we oppose this application based on the fact that we do not see any special need for foreign counsel in the matter to address the constitutional issues and the relevant criminal laws that are regularly prosecuted and referred in our courts. There are enough advocates and solicitors in KL to handle similar sections of the law,” he said.
Under Section 73(ii) of the Legal Profession Act which was cited by Vivek, each state Bar committee has the powers to “promote and safeguard the interests of advocates and solicitors who are members of the state Bar”.
The four respondents are part of this lawsuit, as Section 18(2) requires any person seeking to be admitted to be a lawyer here to serve their application and affidavit on the attorney-general, the Bar Council and the state Bar Committee in the state where the matter is being heard, and the “other party” to the matter which in this case would be the SRC prosecution team.
Section 18(3) requires the High Court to consider the views of those served with the application before deciding whether to admit the person as a lawyer here.
As early as January 24, Shafee had been reported to have informed the Federal Court of Najib’s plans to apply for a Queen’s Counsel from the UK to represent him in the SRC appeal.
On Januarty 25, Shafee’s law firm wrote to the chief justice regarding Najib’s intention to appoint the Queen’s Counsel for the SRC case before the Federal Court.
Shafee today also highlighted to the High Court about the process for appeals on the court’s decision on Laidlaw’s application, where any appeal would be from the High Court to the Federal Court directly instead of to the Court of Appeal.
The Federal Court is scheduled to hear Najib’s SRC appeal over a period of 10 days from August 15 to August 19, and from August 22 to August 26.
This SRC appeal at the Federal Court will be the last appeal that Najib can pursue, since his conviction over the misappropriation of RM42 million of SRC funds was at the High Court in July 2020 and his previous appeal at the Court of Appeal was unanimously dismissed by a three-judge panel on December 8, 2021.
Ahead of this final appeal hearing in August, Najib had also on June 7 applied to the Federal Court to add on purported further evidence that he claimed to have discovered recently, and is seeking for his entire trial for the SRC case in the High Court to be declared null and void and for a retrial.
