FIVE family members of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 victims have filed a judicial review to challenge Putrajaya’s decision to place all documents relating to the missing flight under the Official Secrets Act 1972 (OSA).

Four Malaysians, including two children, and one Taiwanese national filed the suit at the Kuala Lumpur High Court today.

They are seeking the declassification of recordings and transcripts of communication with the aircraft; the airspace procedural Letter of Agreement between Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia; the minutes of meetings held with the relevant agencies; internal memos and the search-and-rescue (SAR) report; the SAR operational incident report; and, post-mortem reports.

The challenge is in relation to a suit filed by victims’ kin against MAS, the Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia and Malaysian government over their failure to ensure the safe transfer of the aircraft and other negligence.

The transport minister, ministry secretary-general and government were named as respondents in the judicial review, which seeks a court declaration that the documents should not have been classified under Section 2A of OSA.

The application, sighted by The Malaysian Insight, was filed this morning by family counsel Sangeet Kaur Deo.

Lawyers Ngeow Chow Ting and Tan Chee Kian represented the family of Tan Ah Meng, his wife, Chuang Hsiu Ling, and eldest son, Tan Wei Chew.

The three were among the 239 passengers and crew aboard MH370, which disappeared while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

The couple’s two children, Ah Meng’s parents, namely Tan Hun Khong and Lai Chew Lai, and Chuang’s father, Hung Chien, had filed a negligence suit against the government in August 2015. Hung Chien is Taiwanese.

In a letter to the transport minister dated June 7, also sighted by The Malaysian Insight, lawyers appealed for the declassification of the materials for court discovery.

Lawyers from the Attorney-General’s Chambers, representing the government, previously told the plaintiffs that DCA director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said he could not provide the documents as they were under OSA.

In their suit against MAS and the government, the plaintiffs sought a public apology, damages and other relief.

The government in May said it would finalise and publish its final report on the international joint search for MH370 this month.

The four-year search, involving seven countries, had cost Malaysia RM500 million. – July 24, 2018.