Shafee was rude (but probably correct) in criticising High Court judge Mohd Nazlan

FMT:

Be polite when criticising trial judge, appellate judge tells Shafee

Abdul Karim Jalil says Muhammad Shafee Abdullah could have used ‘erred in law’ and ‘misdirected himself’ to describe the trial judge’s verdict.

PUTRAJAYA: Court of Appeal judge Abdul Karim Jalil has reprimanded lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and told him to use “polite words” when criticising High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, who had found Najib Razak guilty of seven corruption charges in the SCR International case.

Karim, who is leading a three-member bench, said Shafee could use phrases like “erred in law and “misdirected himself” to show any weakness in Nazlan’s judgment.

“Please use polite words to show where he had gone wrong. No need to use phrases like ‘hopelessly incompetent’ and ‘poisoned his judgment’,” said Karim, who is sitting with Has Zanah Mehat and Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera.

Responding, Shafee said he “could not pull his punches” if that was what had happened.

At the start of Najib’s appeal against his conviction and sentence yesterday, Shafee had submitted that Nazlan, who ordered Najib to enter his defence on all the charges on Nov 11, 2019 in his oral grounds, stated that the prosecution had established a prima facie case.

However, in his written judgment after finding Najib guilty, the judge had included additional reasons why his client was asked to enter his defence, he said.

“It is highly improper and prejudicial to the accused,” he had said, adding that this was also serious misdirection by Nazlan.

This morning, Shafee said Nazlan’s additional reasons were illegal and showed that the judge was “clearly biased”.

“Could we say he was hopelessly incompetent resulting in a blunder?” he asked.

Counsel said the former prime minister did not get a fair trial, and that incorporating new points in the grounds of judgment and appeal records, Nazlan had “poisoned his judgment”.

He said the judge’s action was also a breach of natural justice as the defence could not build a full-fledged defence.

On July 28 last year, Nazlan sentenced Najib to 12 years’ jail and ordered him to pay a RM210 million fine after finding him guilty on seven counts of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering in relation to RM42 million belonging to SRC International Sdn Bhd.

The hearing continues.

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kt notes:

I recall mentioning that High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, who had found Najib Razak guilty of seven corruption charges in the SCR International case, had in his post trial comment, excoriated Najib for not showing the least repentance for his crimes.

I had then queried why would a person appealing the case show any repentance when the aim of his appeal was to challenge the verdict of the chargers? Indeed, any repentance shown (virtually admitting his guilt) would have been fatal to his appeal.

In that post trial criticism by Judge Nazlan I had reckoned (too, in my layman's but commonsense opinion) the judge might have been prejudiced towards Najib.