MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

Let The Drums Roll For The RM100 Million Minister!

The Malaysian works minister and the MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, is so incensed with the Tamil newspaper, Malaysia Nanban, which supports his deputy president, Dato' S. Subramaniam, that he files a RM100 million defamation suit against it. He filed the suit last year and the case is vigorously defended. The flambuoyant cabinet minister is not one to defend himself against political attacks, he sues them instead for libel. In his view, a cabinet minister should not be challenged, and critics deserve to fry in hell. So, when the Malaysia Nanban said that he did not push hard for a second cabinet post for the MIC because he did not want competition from within in the cabinet, his ire was aroused. (The fact remains that the new Indian deputy minister is not from the MIC.) So he sues Malaysian Nanban beyond the capacity of even the government of which he is a member to pay. Critics in his view must be roasted alive; if he did not believe this he would have left it to the court to decide how much general damages he would have to pay.

It is the practice these days, after the defamation suit brought against a now-defunct magazine and some journalists, including M.G.G. Pillai, by the Super Bumiputra aka international business man of unquestioned repute, one Tan Sri Vincent Tan, allowed general damages to be quantified. It is a fair bet Dato' Seri Samy Vellu has taken the same route. He could not be able to justify one per cent of what he claims in special damages, which have to proved. But one should not blame the minister for taking advantage of the law of the defamation as practiced in Malaysia. The Super Bumiputra, with his counsel, Dato' V.K. Lingam, got the Federal Court to accept that general damages can be quantified. It does not matter that it goes against settled law, that when he demanded RM20 million from the witness box (he got half of that) without proof or witnesses, that judgement was tainted because that went against settled law. But the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court did not think so.

That did not stop Dato' Lingam. According to an affidvait filed in another defamation action, he helpfully wrote part or all of the judgement in that case. He is such a powerful figure that he goes on holidays with the now retired chief justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, and the former Attorney-General and now federal court judge, Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah.

So, it is a small step from that to any Tom, Dick and Harry demanding his tonne of flesh for imagined defamation. Dato' Lingam used this judgement to get millions for himself and his clients. Curiously, when the action is defended, the case drags interminably. The court would not accept the affidavit of Dato' Lingam writing the judgement, and that decision is on appeal. But the floodgates opened. The Prime Minister's son is incensed that an Asian Wall Street Journal reporter did not paint him in the laudatory terms he is accustomed to in the local media that he sues for hundreds of millions of ringgit. A travel agent sues for RM1.3 billion. National Front politicians threaten their critics with large defamation suits. So, it was a matter of time when a cabinet minister would. Dato' Seri Samy Vellu has not set the side down when he demands RM100 million.

But what this curtails civil and civic debate. Not that there was much of that in the past. It is worse now. But it is now infra dig to sue for defamation and not demand, in general damages, tens of millions of ringgit. It sends a chill to all and sundry. It reduces politics and civic debate to a farce. Newspaper editors have to look beyond their competence, reporters are threatened with unacceptable damages, and business. A growth industry has grown out of this: people sue for defamation of several times more than that have earned in a life time. What the law of defamation tells us that free speech, in the constitutional meaning of the term, is denied to all who take a view other than that of the man or woman who sues for defamation. When cabinet ministers sue on similar grounds, it restricts it even further. As C.P. Snow said: "When reason sleeps, beasts emerge."

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my