Councillor gets green-light to challenge ruling

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PUTRAJAYA: The challenge to the court ruling allowing the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to interrogate witnesses after office hours is set to be heard by the Federal Court.The apex court yesterday gave the greenlight to Kajang municipal councillor Tan Boon Wah to challenge the Dec 17 ruling of the Court of Appeal which had overturned the High Court decision that the MACC can only question witnesses during between 8.30am and 5.30pm.

Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Alauddin Mohd Sheriff, Federal Court Judges Datuk Wira Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusoff and Datuk Heliliah Mohd Yusof, however, rejected Tan’s application to hear the appeal proper on the merit of the case yesterday.

Tan’s counsel, Karpal Singh, had argued that this was a straightforward case and urged the court to hear it yesterday.

Justice Alauddin said the court needed to wait for the grounds of written judgment before proceeding to hear the appeal and adjourned the case to a date to be fixed.

The leave application was allowed after Karpal informed the court that both Tan and the MACC had agreed on the five questions of law listed in the leave application.

Senior federal counsel Amarjeet Singh, for the MACC, said the agency had agreed on the questions.

Justice Alauddin said since both parties had agreed on the questions, the court had no other choice but to allow the leave application based two of the five questions.

The two questions are: Whether in Section 30(3)(a) of the MACC Act, the phrase ‘day to day’ encompasses only office hours or whether it is to be interpreted to mean a continuous period of 24 hours followed by the next 24 hours until the investigations are completed; Whether Section 30(1)(a) and Section 30(3)(a) of the MACC Act ought to be read conjunctively or disjunctively.

Justice Heliliah said some of the five questions might be irrelevant to the appeal.

To a question from Justice Ghazali on the Appeal Court judgment, Karpal Singh said the oral decision was delivered on Dec 17 last year and he requested for the written judgement on Dec 29 but it was not ready.

Justice Alauddin said he would direct the Court of Appeal for the grounds of written judgement.

On Nov 19, High Court judge Mohammad Ariff Md Yusof, in allowing a judicial review filed by Tan, ruled that Section 30(3)(a) of the MACC Act 2009 does not empower the MACC to investigate a witness “round-the-clock”.

Tan, 39, had sued MACC chief commissioner Datuk Seri Ahmad Said Hamdan (now retired), MACC assistant superintendent Mohammad Hassan Zulkifli and the MACC, claiming that his detention and questioning for 16 hours overnight by the MACC was unlawful, which resulted in him suffering losses and damage.

The High Court ruling prevented the MACC from interrogating witnesses after office hours, contrary to its practice all this while.

However, the Court of Appeal held that Section 30(3)(a) of the MACC Act 2009 did not set any time limit for the MACC to interrogate witnesses and overturned the High Court decision.

Karpal Singh told reporters later that the Federal Court should have heard the appeal proper yesterday as it involved a public interest case and the decision should be binding on all agencies dealing with investigation of witnesses. — Bernama