PAS leader to pay Guan Eng RM250,000 over headscarf allegation

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has affirmed a High Court ruling last year ordering Perak PAS chief Razman Zakaria to pay Lim Guan Eng RM250,000 in damages and make a public apology over a Facebook post deemed defamatory to the former Penang chief minister.

A three-member bench chaired by Justice S Nantha Balan said there was no appealable error to warrant the court’s intervention, after having due regard to the comprehensive written submissions and oral clarifications.

“In our view, the learned judicial commissioner (trial judge), having considered all the evidence, was fully entitled to reach his evaluative judgment,” he said in dismissing Razman’s appeal today.

Lim, who is the DAP chairman and Bagan MP, was also awarded RM20,000 in costs.

Nantha, who sat with Justices Nazlan Ghazali and Choo Kah Sing, said Lim had proven that the post was published and that Razman’s Facebook publication was defamatory.

Razman, now the opposition leader in the Perak state assembly, claimed in a Facebook post on Nov 18, 2017 that Lim was supporting a so-called ban on hotel workers wearing headscarves, with the Penang government in full support.

Nantha said Razman, in his defence, did not specifically deny Lim’s stand that the posting had been published.

He said that from documents produced at the trial, there were at least 61 people who had posted their comments in relation to the impugned posting.

The impugned Facebook posting was one which, even upon a quick scroll by readers, suggested that Lim was against headscarves, which in the Malaysian context was highly defamatory, he said.

In his suit against Razman, Lim said the post was made up and aimed at tarnishing his reputation and making him look like someone who had no respect for Islamic and Malay culture.

In a ruling by then judicial commissioner (now High Court judge) Amarjeet Singh on March 18 last year, Razman was ordered to pay Lim RM150,000 in general damages and RM100,000 in aggravated and exemplary damages.

Amarjeet also ordered Razman to make a public apology on his Facebook page within 14 days and for Lim’s Facebook page to be tagged in the apology post.

Razman was also ordered not to repeat the statement on Facebook in any way in the future.

Lim had testified that the post by Razman was slanderous and had affected his reputation as well as his role as the then Penang chief minister.

He said he never made any remarks about banning female Muslim hotel staff from wearing their headscarves.

Though he filed a witness statement, Razman did not give evidence and the defence said it had no case to answer.

Lawyers Murelidharan M Navaratnam and Felix Lim appeared for Lim, while Norazli Nordin represented Razman in today’s proceeding.