High Court judge Justice Loke Yee Ching has rejected former prime minister Najib Razak‘s oral application for her to recuse herself from presiding over his judicial review of a royal addendum.
During case management today, Najib’s counsel, Shafee Abdullah, raised an issue with a ruling made last week when Loke dismissed his client’s bid to cite former attorney-general Ahmad Terrirudin Salleh for contempt of court.
The concern centred on Loke’s decision that the duty of candour does not apply at the leave stage.
The duty of candour requires parties to disclose all relevant information and material facts, even those that may weaken their case.
Najib had sought leave to cite Terrirudin for contempt over his alleged role in suppressing a royal addendum that would have allowed him to serve the rest of his reduced sentence under house arrest.
“Now that Yang Arif has decided that the duty of candour doesn’t apply, especially at that stage, we are saying it does apply even from there, based on two cases (at the Court of Appeal).
“What I am going with Yang Arif is this: there is therefore a predetermination by Yang Arif on a matter that is one of the cornerstones of our application in the judicial review,” Shafee said.
Loke however dismissed the request, saying that her earlier finding was confined to the leave application.
“At that stage, I was of the view that the duty of candour does not arise. Now, the leave to commit the former attorney-general for committal arose from the stand taken during the application for leave to commence judicial review proceedings.
“So the finding made by me on the duty of candour can be seen in that context. Now that leave has already been granted, I think we are over that stage already.
“So the issue of my finding possibly causing me to be biased should not arise. We are now at a substantive stage,” she said.
The court fixed Nov 24 for substantive hearing.
Najib was convicted of misappropriating RM42 million from SRC International Sdn Bhd and has been serving his sentence at Kajang prison since Aug 23, 2022.
He filed a petition for a royal pardon on Sept 2, 2022.
The Federal Territories Pardons Board later halved his prison term from 12 years to six and reduced his fine from RM210 million to RM50 million.
