Ex-judge loses appeal in RM100mil defamation suit against Sarawak Report editor
The technical grounds were Mabel's failure to translate two allegedly defamatory articles into Bahasa Melayu, a mandatory requirement for all pleadings filed in court in her suit over three articles.
One of the article s was a 2015 Sarawak Report piece titled "How AG's office connived to prevent a second post-mortem on Kevin Morais — Exclusive Expose".
A three-judge Court of Appeal (CoA) panel led by Datuk Azizah Nawawi today (July 14) dismissed Mabel's appeal, saying they were bound by another CoA ruling that a plaintiff must provide a Bahasa Malaysia text of an impugned defamatory article.
"In this case, there was no Bahasa Malaysia translation of the impugned defamatory article, and that was clearly a non-compliance with Order 92 Rule 1 of the Rules of Court 2012.
"We find there is no appealable error by the High Court.
"The appeal is therefore dismissed with costs," she said.
The court ordered Mabel to pay RM10,000 in costs to Rewcastle Brown.
Azizah sat with judges Datuk Azizul Azmi Adnan and Datuk Ahmad Fairuz Zainol Abidin.
Lawyers Guok Ngek Seong and Phyllia Lim acted for Rewcastle Brown while Mabel was represented by lawyers Datuk David Gurupatham and R. Venothani.
Mabel was once a special officer to former attorney-general Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali.
In May last year, then High Court Judicial Commissioner (now judge) Datuk Raja Ahmad Mohzanuddin Shah Raja Mohzan said the requirement for complete pleadings in Bahasa Melayu is attributed to the language's supremacy as a national language.
He said this was enshrined in Article 152 of the Federal Constitution and Section 8 of the National Language Act 1963/67 and Order 92 Rule 1 of the Rules of Court 2012.
He said Mabel made an inference about the meaning of the articles and ruled that he would have awarded RM1 million in damages as one of the three articles was defamatory and injured her reputation, but there was still no certified translation in Bahasa Melayu.
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