The court ruled that statements made regarding internal affairs of an organization are protected under qualified privilege and do not constitute defamation if they do not materially injure the plaintiff's reputation.

Rozi Bainon JC:

Introduction

[1] Mr Lai Kong Phooi (the Plaintiff) and Mr Yap Soon Hoe (the Defendant) born in 1956, they are at the same age.

[2] The Plaintiff filed the defamation suits against the Defendant.

[3] The Plaintiff pleaded that the Defendant has published 3 letters that contained libellous defamation of the Plaintiff by the Defendant and 2 WhatsApp messages. The Plaintiff contends that the publications shall lower the reputation of the Plaintiff in the eyes of right-thinking members of his engineering fraternity and were libellous in nature.

[4] Who is the Plaintiff? In the statement of claim, the Plaintiff has stated about himself and his background as follows, among others:

- is the Principal Director of Perunding Muhibbah, a civil structural and project rehabilitation consultancy firm. The firm was established since 1987 with offices at Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur.

- from 2009 to 2006 (7 terms), is appointed and served as the Senior Ipoh City Halls (MBI) Councillor.

- from 2016 to 2020, is appointed and served as Board Member of the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM)

- from 2018 to 2020, is the President of Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM).

- from 2018 to 2020, is appointed as the Chairman of IEM Training Centre Sdn Bhd.

- from 2018 to 2020, is appointed and served as Board Member of Malaysian Standards and Accreditation Council under the ambit of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

- from 2018 to 2022, is served as a member of the Disciplinary Panel of the Advocates & Solicitors Disciplinary Board Malaysia.

- from 2017 to 2022, is served as the Chairman of Industry Advisory Panel Member, Faculty of Civil Engineering at Monash University Malaysia.

- is a professional engineer with practicing licence and is engaged in the engineering consultancy business and has served in various capacities as Board Members both in Government agencies, local authorities and Institution of Higher Learning.

[5] Who is the Defendant? In the statement of claim, the Plaintiff has stated about the Defendant as a Member of IEM and is the former IEM Honorary Secretary from April 2017 to April 2018.

[6] The publications in the 3 Letters and 2 WhatsApp Messages, namely:

Publications By The Defendant

[7] The Plaintiff has pleaded in its statement of claim that the contents of the First Letter by the Defendant dated 21 June 2018 were published without any justification what so ever and manifested the malice by the Defendant towards the Plaintiff.

Para 21 in the statement of claim is reproduced:

"21. On 21 June 2018, a letter by the Defendant (hereinafter referred at as "the Said First Letter"), was addressed to the Honorary Secretary of IEM and circulated to all 19 IEM Executive Committee Members and was published and actuated by malice by the Defendant which, inter alia, stated the following words:

"1. As emphasized by our President during his tenure as Finance Standing Committee Chairman (Deputy President) for the past two sessions, he consistently emphasized that financially IEM was not in a very comfortable position, thus austerity spending was the call of the day. I was a member of the Committee and support the proposal of cost cutting. Thus, I find it rather perplexing that as now being the President that such austerity measure was not in place."

2. "... It is my opinion that Branch visits are necessary but not urgent and more often the President travels alone albeit bring along an entourage..."

3. "I und