JUDGMENT

Sulaiman Daud J:

This is the defendant's application under O. 18 r. 19 of the Rules of the High 1980 (the RHC 1980) to strike out the plaintiff's action for slander and libel herein.

The plaintiff's cause of action against the defendant herein is founded on a speech by the defendant on 28 July 2002, and on publications made on 29 July 2002 in four Chinese newspapers, namely, the See Hua Daily News, the International Times, the Chinese Daily News and the Miri Daily News. In this action the plaintiff claims against the defendant for general, aggravated and exemplary damages in the aggregate sum of RM26,000,000 for libel and slander in respect of such speech and publications, in addition to other injunctionary relief related thereto.

The relevant facts as averred in the statement of claim may be briefly stated. At all material times the plaintiff is a member of parliament and member of the Sarawak National Party (SNAP). The defendant is the Secretary General of the party. It is alleged that on or about 28 July 2002 at a meeting with members of the party and in the presence of all the persons present thereat, the defendant spoke of certain words in English defamatory of the plaintiffs. The words so spoken or words of the like effect were subsequently published in the four Chinese newspapers aforesaid.

The alleged defamatory words were set out in full in para. 4 of the statement of claim. The publication of the alleged defamatory words in the four newspapers were pleaded in paras. 6, 7, 8 and 9 respectively. However the actual words in Mandarin published in the newspapers which were alleged to be defamatory against the plaintiff were not reproduced therein. Only the translation thereof in the English language were set out in the pleading.

There were three grounds advanced by the learned counsel for the defendant in support of the application. Firstly the omission to state the words complained of in the language they were published in the Chinese newspapers is fatal in the plaintiff's action for libel. Secondly the defendant cannot be liable for libel as the words complained of were spoken verbally. Thirdly there is no pleading on special damages to sustain an action for libel.

I will deal with the first issue. The question to be answered is whether the words alleged to be defamatory of the plaintiff as published in the four Chinese newspapers must be reproduced in the pleading in their original language. Mr. Chong Siew Chiang, the learned counsel for the defendant submitted that the exact words so published which constitute the cause of action for libel must be pleaded. Any omission to reproduce the same will render the plaintiff's pleading defective in so far as it relates to an action of libel.

In support of the proposition the learned counsel cited Workers' Party v. Tay Boon Too[1974] 1 MLRH 673, [1975] 1 MLJ 47 (Singapore High Court),Lim Kit Siang v. Datuk Ling Liong Sik [1975] 5 MLJ and Karpal Singh Ram Singh v. DP Vijandran; [2001] 4 MLJ 161; [2001] 3 CLJ 871; [2001] 3 AMR 3625 .

In Workers' Party v. Tay Boon Too , the alleged defamatory words were spoken in Hokkien and in Singapore the language of the Court is in English. It was held that if the slander alleged is in a language other than English it must be set out in the statement of claim in the foreign language precisely as spoken and followed by a literal translation. The absence of the original words in the foreign language in question is fatal.

In Lim Kit Siang v. Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik & Ors , the plaintiff's cause of action was founded on a speech by the first defendant and on a publication in the Star newspaper. It can be inferred therein that the alleged defamatory words were not spoken in Malay, being the language of the Court. In striking out the plaintiff's application, the Court held that the exact words as uttered must be reproduced in the original language with a certified translation in the language of the Court, in the absence of which the claim will f