KUALA LUMPUR: Former attorney-general Tan Sri Tommy Thomas has refuted a High Court ruling that he was involved in orchestrating the fall of the Barisan Nasional government during the 2018 general election.
The senior lawyer said this in his supporting affidavit to recuse High Court judicial commissioner Roz Mawar Rozain from hearing a lawsuit filed by Tan Sri Shahrir Samad against him for alleged malicious investigation, prosecution and wrongful arrest.
Thomas, who was the A-G from June 4, 2018 to Feb 28, 2020, claimed he was shocked when he read Roz Mawar's ruling when the latter dismissed his application to quash the lawsuit.
He claimed the court had already decided the case against him when the judge made numerous unfounded conclusions that contradicted both the pleadings and the evidence presented before her.
He claimed that Roz Mawar, in her ruling, had misunderstood the contents of his infamous memoir "My Story — Justice in the Wilderness" when she mentioned the book in her judgment.
"It only contained my observations on the autonomy of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) as an independent investigation body.
"I am unable therefore to understand how Roz Mawar concluded that I had made such admissions based on my book.
"The only explanation is that Her Ladyship had readily accepted the plaintiff's assertions and submissions at face value.
"The judge also seems to have ventured beyond the parties' pleadings.
"It was not the plaintiff's pleaded case that I wrote in my book of interfering with investigations against him.
"Instead, the plaintiff merely pleaded that I had written of having urged speedier investigations by the MACC on scandals involving the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) and and Felcra," he claimed.
Thomas also claimed Roz Mawar made a quantum leap in deciding that the plaintiff had established prima facie of improper motives and bad faith in the prosecution against him.
"I have never been involved in politics or been a member of any political party.
"In any event, Her Ladyship's finding that I had 'acknowledged' in my book a role and effort to topple the BN government is entirely without basis.
"Based on Her Ladyship's written grounds and the matters set out above, I believe, with respect, that Roz Mawar had predetermined the plaintiff's suit against me.
"I will not get a fair trial before her, which I am constitutionally entitled to as a fundamental right," he claimed.
The same court had, in July, dismissed Thomas' application to strike out the suit on grounds that Shahrir's claim was not an abuse of process and ought to be ventilated in a trial.
Shahrir, who is former Felda chairman, had in December last year filed a suit naming Thomas and three others, including the MACC, as defendants.
The suit was over a RM1 million cheque he had received from then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for the purpose of rehabilitation works for the Puri Langkasuka housing project in Larkin, Johor.
The former minister was charged in early 2020, and his trial began in July 2022.
However, on Jan 5 last year, the High Court gave Shahrir a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) after the prosecution dropped the case.
Throughout, Shahrir maintained that the sum in question was a reimbursement, not income, and therefore did not need to be declared.