The essence of scandalizing contempt is to protect public confidence in the judiciary, balancing freedom of speech against judicial integrity.

[1] This is our judgment in respect of the Honourable Attorney-General's application dated 28 February 2019, seeking an order of committal against Arunachalam Kasi ('Arun Kasi') for contempt of court, more particularly, scandalising contempt.

[2] The grounds upon which this application was made was that Arun Kasi had scandalised the Federal court of Malaysia by making various allegations regarding judicial conduct in the hearing, disposal and adjudication of a civil application before the Federal court on 7 November 2018 in two articles published online by a news portal known as Aliran.

[3] The thrust of the Attorney-General's originating summons is that Arun Kasi's statements in these two articles insinuate that the Federal court Judges who heard and allowed the application to expunge portions of the dissenting judgment were guilty of misconduct, involved in corrupt activity and had compromised their integrity, to the extent that an investigation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission ('MACC') was warranted. The MACC is a statutory body established to investigate into offences of corruption. These insinuations were made in both the articles published by Aliran.

[4] As a consequence of these allegations the Attorney-General, as the guardian of the rule of law, brought this application, not to protect the dignity of the individual judges concerned, but to protect public confidence in the administration of justice in Malaysia. Put another way, the publications comprising substantively, if not wholly of Arun Kasi's allegations, were calculated to impair the confidence of the people in the court's judgments and thereby the administration of justice as a whole.

Salient Background Facts

[5] It is undisputed that Arun Kasi sent a press release to an online news portal known as Aliran. As a consequence of his sending this press release, two articles were published online on Aliran's website on 16 February 2019 and 22 February 2019 respectively. The two articles are entitled:

(i) "How a dissenting judgment sparked a major judicial crisis"; and

(ii) "Tommy Thomas must look into arbitration centre that sparked judicial crisis".

[6] The substantive, if not the whole, of the content of these articles emanates from the press release furnished by Arun Kasi.

[7] More specifically, these articles contain allegations pertaining to judicial conduct in the hearing, disposal and decision of the Federal court in relation to an application for the expunction of parts of a dissenting judgment by Justice Hamid Sultan Abu Backer Judge of the court of Appeal, in the case of Federal court Civil Application No: 08(i)-394-07-2018(W) PCP Construction Sdn Bhd v. Leap Modulation Sdn Bhd (Asian International Arbitration Centre, Intervener) ('Leap Modulation'). It is apparent from a reading of the two articles that the "Leap Modulation case" referred to by Arun Kasi in both articles is a reference to the said civil application.

[8] Leave for an order for committal for contempt was granted by this court on an ex parte basis 28 February 2019. On 13 March 2019, this court dismissed an application by the respondent to set aside the ex parte leave for committal. The substantive motion for committal was heard and disposed of on 28 March 2019. Prior to hearing the substantive motion, the court heard and dismissed Arun Kasi's application to cross-examine the Attorney-General on his affidavit affirmed in support of the substantive motion.

Events Leading To The Application To Expunge In Leap Modulation

(i) How AIAC Was Drawn I