PUTRAJAYA: Online news portal Malaysiakini was today fined RM500,000 after the Federal Court found it guilty of contempt of court over readers' comments scandalising the judiciary.
The court in a 6-1 majority decision held that the news portal had failed to cast a reasonable doubt on the allegation against it for publishing the comments.
Court of Appeal president Datuk Rohana Yusuf ordered for the fine to be paid within three days from Monday, next week.
However, the top court found that its editor-in-chief Steven Gan was not guilty of contempt.
The contempt action was initiated by Attorney-General (AG) Tan Sri Idrus Harun who claimed that Malaysiakini and Gan had facilitated the publishing of five readers' comments which undermined the country's judiciary and was embarrassing and offensive.
The comments appeared in the comment section of an article published on the news portal entitled "CJ orders all courts to be fully operational from July 1" on June 9, last year.
In the majority decision, Rohana who chaired a seven-member bench said the respondent (Malaysiakini) should have been aware of the comments posted on its website.
The court was also of the view that to avoid liability, the news portal must have a system to detect and to rapidly delete comments that were published on its site.
"It is not enough for the first responsent (Malaysiakini) to leave it free and easy to online subscribers or to say it cannot edit a comment once they are published.
"Ultimately, Malaysiakini is the owner of the portal. It has full control over what it has published.
"We are therefore satisfied that a case of contempt had been made against the first respondent," Rohana said.
In finding Gan not guilty of contempt, the court held that he did not facilitate in the publishing of the comments.
The majority who agreed with Rohana were Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Azahar Mohamed, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Datuk Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, and Federal Court judges Datuk Seri Mohd Zawawi Salleh, Datuk Vernon Ong Lam Kiat and Datuk Abdul Rahman Sebli.
Meanwhile in a dissenting judgement, Federal Court judge P. Nallini found both Malaysiakini and Gan not guilty.
After the verdict was delivered, Malaysiakini chief executive officer Premesh Chandran tendered an unreserved apology to the court in open court before the judges.
His apology came before the sentencing of Malaysiakini for contempt.
Counsel Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar who represented the respondents pleaded for a nominal fine of RM20,000 to RM30,000 to be imposed on the news portal while senior federal counsel Suzana Atan proposed a RM200,000 fine.
The court then took a short adjournment to deliberate on the sentence.
In sentencing, Rohana said the court had taken into account the apology extended by both respondents in writing and orally to as well as their cooperation with the police.
"Having said that, the impugned statements had gone far and wide locally and internationally, the content was spurious and reprehensible in nature and the content involved allegations of corruption which were unproven and untrue.
"We are of the view that the fine in the sum of RM500,000 would be appropriate so we hereby order the fine by the first respondent to paid within three days from Monday," she said.
On June 17, last year, the court gave a green light to institute the proceedings against Mkini Dotcom, the company which runs Malaysiakini and Gan after allowing Idrus' ex-parte leave application on grounds that prima facie for contempt has been established to initiate the proceedings.
Malaysiakini and Gan had subsequently filed a bid to set aside the leave obtained by the AG, but it was rejected by the federal Court on July 2, the same year.