The Court of Appeal has ordered the Kuching High Court to release its grounds of judgment for the Sarawak government’s defamation suit against DAP’s Chong Chieng Jen, three years after ruling in the state administration’s favour.
Chong, the state opposition leader, said his legal team had written five times to the High Court to request for the grounds of judgment but to no avail.
He said the appellate court was scheduled to hear his appeal against the High Court’s decision today but could not proceed as there were no grounds of judgment.
“Finally, the Court of Appeal has ordered the High Court to provide the grounds of judgment within one month from today. It has postponed hearing of the appeal,” Chong said in a statement.
The Sarawak DAP chief also said his lawyers would be writing to the chief judge of Sabah and Sarawak on the matter.
The state government and Sarawak Financial Authority (SFA) had sued Chong in 2013 for claiming that RM11 billion in state funds had disappeared into a “black hole”.
The case only came up for trial in January 2021, with 26 days of proceedings before it concluded in July the same year.
In August 2022, High Court judge Alexander Siew, then a judicial commissioner, ruled that Chong had defamed the plaintiffs and awarded RM150,000 in damages.
