KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court threw out a defamation suit by veteran lawyer Tan Sri Dr Muhammad Shafee Abdullah against the Malaysian Bar and its three senior members over his post-Sodomy 2 conduct.
Judge Datuk Hanipah Farikullah dismissed the lawsuit with no cost during open-court proceedings today.
The lawsuit was over an alleged defamatory motion, which was uploaded on the Bar 's portal ax on March 9, last year.
The motion - which was initially set to be discussed during the Bar's Annual General Meeting last year - dealt with Shafee's behaviour after the Federal Court upheld Anwar's conviction and five-year jail term on Feb 10 last year.
Hanipah ruled that the Bar and the other defendants - the legal body's former president Christopher Leong, lawyer Tommy Thomas, and former Court of Appeal judge Tan Sri V.C. George - were protected by defence of justification.
"There was some substantive truth to the motion," said Hanipah.
"That was where the motion lies, on the conduct of the plaintiff (Shafee) on the forum (in Kelana Jaya last year) that he attended," said Hanipah.
She was referring to Shafee's act of giving a public talk about the Federal Court judgment, which became the subject matter of the motion.
She also noted that the motion was merely in relation to a bid to get the Bar to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Shafee over his conduct's alleged breach of the Legal Profession Act.