A question of etiquette
I was in the Federal Court this morning with Malik Imtiaz for the hearing of Raja Petra’s application to review four decisions of the Federal Court last week.
The review application stemmed out from what we, the Counsel for Raja Petra, deemed as the “coram failure” of the Federal Court which sat to hear 4 motions filed by us last week.
Briefly what happened last week was as follows. When we were told that Justice Augustine Paul was sitting, we filed recusal application. When the appeal was called, Justice Paul, correctly in our view, said that he should not hear the recusal application as he had wanted everything that needed to be said be said without fear. He had also expressed that he wanted justice to not only be done but also be seen to be done. That was gracious of him, I think. He said that at the outset.
The motion then was called and he excused himself. The 2 remaining Judges decided to continue. Imtiaz pointed out that under the Court of Judicature Act, the Federal Court must have 3 Judges. Justice Nik Hashim invoked section 78 which says that if a Judge is unable to continue hearing a matter, the other 2 may continue.
And so they continued. We told the remaining Judges that our stand is that the sitting is unconstitutional. The Court then heard argument and dismissed the recusal. 3 other motions were also dismissed later when Justice Paul rejoined the Coram. Against that we filed a review, which came up for hearing today.
