Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s lawyer Yusfarizal Yusoff (pic) is pictured at Kuala Lumpur High Court May 7, 2021. ― Picture by Ahmad Zamzahuri
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KUALA LUMPUR, May 7 — PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang today succeeded in his application to have the courts strike out a lawsuit by two Sabahans who had sought to declare him as unfit for any government posts over his alleged seditious remark in 2016.
High Court judge Datuk Akhtar Tahir today allowed Hadi to strike out the lawsuit, ruling among other things that the court case was frivolous and an abuse of court process, and that the two Sabahans did not have locus standi or legal standing to file the case.
The judge also ordered the two Sabahans to pay costs of RM50,000 each to Hadi, following the striking out of the lawsuit.
On December 9, 2020, two Christian Sabahan men — Maklin Masiau and Lawrence Jomiji Kinsil @ Maximilhian — filed the lawsuit against Hadi, asserting that it was a public interest case.
In their lawsuit filed via an originating summons, the two Sabahans claimed that Hadi had made a seditious statement in PAS newspaper Harakah against Christians and Christian missionaries on January 18, 2016.
They said they had filed the lawsuit as the public prosecutor had not charged Hadi for these remarks after four years.
In the lawsuit, the two men were seeking for two specific court orders, namely a declaration that Hadi had committed a seditious act that was in breach of Section 3 of the Sedition Act and a declaration that Hadi is not fit to hold any position in the Malaysian government, including a position equivalent to a ministerial position.
On April 12, 2020, Hadi was appointed as the prime minister’s special envoy to the Middle East, which is a position that carries a status equivalent to a minister.
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