By Dorcas Ting
KUCHING, March 1: The trial has kicked off for the defamation suit filed by Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) president Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian against Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman Chong Chieng Jen over an alleged defamatory Facebook post posted by the Chong and press statement authored by the defendant on April 2020.
Dr Sim is suing Chong for general and aggravated damages for libel and malicious falsehood.
The case is being heard by High Court Judge Alwi Abdul Wahab.
The alleged defamatory Facebook post dated April 15, 2020 and a press statement authored by the defendant dated April 18, 2020 had been uploaded on the defendant’s Facebook page.
The plaintiff will call 14 witnesses to testify. Witnesses will include Minister for Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah, Deputy Minister for Education, Innovation and Talent Development I (Education and Innovation) Dr Annuar Rapaee, former Padungan assemblyman Wong King Wei, and Ministry of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development permanent secretary Dr Saadiah Abdul Samat.
Before the plaintiff called Saadiah as its first witness, the defendant’s counsel, Chong Siew Chiang stood up to raise his objection that innuendo meaning should be struck out with the view that natural meaning and innuendo meaning are two separate courses of action.
Chong said in the statement of claim, there is no identification of the person who understands the secondary meaning which the plaintiff complains through his course of action of innuendo.
However, the plaintiff’s counsel Shankar Ram Asnani argued there are two types of innuendo: false or popular innuendo, and true or legal innuendo. He said false or popular innuendo still requires particulars to be pleaded based on its ordinary and natural meaning derived from the context of the defamatory article or post while true or legal innuendo is based on extrinsic facts that must be pleaded which is known to only certain special people.
Referring to the plaintiff’s bundle of pleading, Shankar said it is pleaded “…the words complained of that are contained in the first Facebook post and set out in their natural and ordinary meaning and/or alternatively by way of innuendo, bear the following meaning….We have pleaded the natural and ordinary meaning which is the popular or false innuendo and given particulars. We are not relying on extrinsic facts and we are not relying on.”
Justice Alwi then ruled that based on the plaintiff’s statement of claim, the pleaded case does not rely on legal innuendo but on plain and ordinary meaning, and he therefore dismissed the objection of the defendant’s counsel.
On April 21, 2020, Dr Sim had started legal action against Chong and several State DAP leaders over alleged defamatory statements over the allocation of funds for food assistance amidst the Covid-19 outbreak.
Dr Sim’s lawyer had issued a letter of demand dated April 30, 2020 and the letter was served to Chong on May 2. The letter demanded an apology from Chong and payment of damages to be made within seven days from the date of the letter or before May 7, 2020.
Chong had instructed his counsels to counter-claim and claim against Dr Sim on several of allegedly defamatory statements made against Chong.
Chong had alleged defamed Dr Sim over Covid-19 food aid allocations amounting to RM800,000 for four constituencies and also allocations for the constituencies of Padungan, Batu Lintang, Pending and Kota Sentosa with the total allocation of RM1 million for five constituencies.
Dr Sim was represented by counsels Dato Bong Ah Loi, Shankar Ram, Russell Lim and Yiu Ying Ying whereas Chong was represented by counsels Chong Siew Chiang, Michael Kong and Sim Kiat Leng. — DayakDaily
