The Court of Appeal has ruled against the father of a medical doctor who died in his quarters in Langkawi under suspicious circumstances five years ago, holding he was not entitled to sue as administrator of his late son’s estate.
Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah, who led a three-member bench, said Joseph Anthony should have filed the action in his personal capacity.
The judge said the suit was also time-barred as Section 2(a) of the Public Authorities and Protection Act 1948 required that it be filed within 36 months from the date the cause of action arose.
The government had argued that the lawsuit should have been filed by or before Nov 17, 2013, calculated from the date of Dr Sebastian Joseph’s death three years earlier.
His father, however, took the position that he was permitted to file it at any time before 2019 following the release of a second post-mortem report issued by two pathologists appointed by the family.
Sequerah also said medical officer Dr Muhamad Arif Mohamad Rasat was qualified under Section 331 of the Criminal Procedure Code to conduct a post-mortem on the deceased.
The court, which also comprised Justices Faizah Jamaludin and Evrol Mariette Peters, however, did not make any cost order despite senior federal counsel Zetty Zurina Kamaruddin asking for RM50,000.
In 2019, a coroner’s court in Alor Setar issued an open verdict in Sebastian’s case, concluding that the inquest conducted failed to determine definitively whether he died by suicide, natural causes or foul play.
The conducting officer from the Attorney-General’s Chambers took the position that Sebastian died from natural causes.
Joseph filed his civil suit in 2018.
In the statement of claim, he claimed that the investigation officer had failed to conduct a thorough probe and merely handed over the deceased’s body to the Langkawi Hospital.
Joseph further claimed that no actual post-mortem was conducted on the deceased as only a few incisions were made on the body.
Sebastian, 30, was found dead in his government quarters in Padang Matsirat on Nov 17, 2010, after his brother, Anthony, lodged a police report claiming he was unreachable.
The deceased, a medical officer at the Kuah government clinic in Langkawi, was said to be kneeling with his hands clenched when police found the body.
The doctor who conducted the post-mortem said the cause of death was “unascertained”.
In 2015, the family successfully made an application for the body to be exhumed from a Christian cemetery in Shah Alam for a second post-mortem to determine the cause of death, and for an inquest to be held.
The plaintiff sought damages for the failure to conduct the initial post-mortem in accordance with professional medical standards, as well as reimbursement for costs incurred in commissioning a second autopsy.
Two years ago, the High Court dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that it was filed out of time – giving rise to the present appeal.
Lawyer M Visvanathan, Sanjay Nathan and Pushan Qin Nathan represented Joseph.
Visvanathan said he had instructions to apply for leave to appeal to the Federal Court.
