MALAYSIAKINI has applied to set aside a Federal Court order that allowed Attorney-General Idrus Harun to commence contempt proceedings against the online news portal.

The notice of motion was filed at the Federal Court Registry yesterday, said Surendra Ananth.

The attorney-general had, on Monday, filed for leave to cite Malaysiakini and its editor-in-chief, Steven Gan, over readers’ comments in response to a June 9 article about the chief justice’s directive to the courts to reopen on July 1, following the easing of movement restrictions.  

Idrus, in his affidavit, cited five comments that allegedly conveyed the impression that “the judiciary committee wrongdoings, is involved in corruption, does not uphold justice and compromised its integrity”.

The Federal Court granted leave the following day and fixed July 2 for parties to appear before the court. Malaysiakini’s setting-aside application has been fixed for hearing before the apex court, also on July 2.

In his affidavit-in-support, reported by Malaysiakini today, Gan said that, due to the high volume of such comments, it was not possible for Malaysiakini to directly moderate comments and thus, it had to rely on a peer reporting process.

As only registered Malaysiakini subscribers were permitted to post comments, they were required to agree to the portal’s terms and conditions on postings before they could comment.

As a matter of law, neither Malaysiakini nor he could be considered as having published the comments such that their publication on the portal can be attributed to them, Gan said. 

“It is incumbent on the applicant to demonstrate to this honourable court that the first respondent and I had intentionally published the comments. This was plainly not the case here as the comments were by third parties,” Gan said.

Idrus had said last week that Malaysiakini was wrong in allowing these comments to be published as they are “unwarranted” and had demeaned and tarnished the judiciary. – June 25, 2020.