KUALA LUMPUR: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is seeking to recuse a High Court judge from hearing his originating summons to declare the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) report into foreign exchange losses suffered by Bank Negara Malaysia in the 1990s null and void.
Counsel Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla, who represented Dr Mahathir, said the application was filed on grounds that judge Datuk Azizah Nawawi had previously decided on a judicial review application filed by his client on the appointment of two members of the RCI.
Azizah had on Aug 17 last year dismissed Dr Mahathir’s bid to quash the RCI’s decision to dismiss his application to terminate two of the commission’s panel members who were Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan and Tan Sri Saw Choo Boon.
“In the previous application, the government had raised an objection and it was heard and decided by the current judge (Azizah), and the issue raised now by the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) to strike out the originating summons by my client is similar to the judicial review application,” he said after the matter came up before Azizah in chambers.
Today was supposedly fixed for hearing of the AGC’s application to strike out the originating summons filed by Tun Mahathir, who is also Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) chairman, on grounds that the legal action had no reasonable cause of action and that the court could not act against the commission.
Haniff said the court fixed May 17 for decision of their application to recuse the judge and case management of the AGC’s striking out application.
Dr Mahathir had filed the originating summons on Dec 19 last year naming Mohd Sidek, who is RCI chairman, and members Datuk Kamaludin Md Said, Datuk Seri Tajuddin Atan, Saw, K. Pushpanathanan and Datuk Dr Yusof Ismail as defendants.
Also named as defendants were Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the cabinet and the government.
In the summons, Dr Mahathir sought to declare any report by the RCI set up under the Royal Commission of Inquiry Act 1950 was only legal and in order if it had all the written statements by the witnesses who testified in the proceedings, notes of the proceedings, the submissions and the findings.
He had claimed the report was illegal, incomplete and defective as it lacked proceedings notes, and written and oral submissions through transcription or video recording.