THE Federal Court today found news portal Malaysiakini guilty of contempt for allowing online comments which attacked the judiciary.

A seven-man bench led by Court of Appeal president Rohana Yusuf, however, found second respondent, editor-in-chief Steven Gan, not guilty.

The court is now hearing submissions from legal teams for Malaysiakini and the Attorney-General’s Chambers on the sentencing of the news portal for contempt.

The seven judges who delivered the decision today are Rohana, Azahar Mohamed, Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, Mohd Zawawi Salleh, Nallini Pathmanathan, Vernon Ong Lam Kiat and Abdul Rahman Sebli.

There is no legal limit to the penalties for contempt of court. Among the possible outcomes include Malaysiakini being slapped with a fine.

Attorney-General Idrus Harun filed the committal application against Mkini Dot Com Sdn Bhd and Malaysiakini’s “ketua editor”, over five comments left by its readers on the portal’s comment section under a June 9 news report titled “CJ orders all courts to be fully operational from July 1”.

Two days later, the Federal Court granted leave to the AG to proceed with the contempt bid.

Rohana said Malaysiakini could not claim it did not know of the comments posted.

The news team had an “impressive editorial team structure” and so it was not possible for such a system to have missed the comments.

On July 13 last year, the apex court heard submissions from the legal teams of both parties on the merits of the committal action.

During hearing of the application, senior federal counsel S. Nakunavathy, appearing for the AG argued that Mkini Dotcom had facilitated the publication of the comments and the company was presumed to publish the comments which were contemptuous in nature.

Lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, representing Mkini Dotcom and Gan, submitted that the AG must prove beyond reasonable doubt that his clients had intentionally published the comments, adding that on the evidence there was nothing to show that they had intended to publish the comments. – February 19, 2021.