The court ruled that the minister's discretionary ban on publications lacked sufficient grounds of public order infringement and violated the constitutional right to freedom of expression.

[1] This judgment addresses two appeals against the decision of the learned High Court Judge in two judicial review applications which were heard together with the agreement of the parties. The learned judge provided one judgment for three separate judicial review applications. These present two appeals concern (a) Sepakat Efektif Sdn Bhd and (b) Mkini Dotcom Sdn Bhd as the appellants in Civil Appeals No: W-01-500-2011 and W-01-501-2011 respectively. In both appeals, the respondents are the same.

[2] The subject matter of both appeals relate to the banning of two books by the Deputy Minister for Home Affairs under s 7(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 ("PPPA"). The relevant Order is the Printing Presses and Publications (Control of Undesirable Publications) (No 5) Order 2010 ("Order No 5"). The concerned publications are "Perak Darul Kartun" and "1 Funny Malaysia."

[3] This judgment is not concerned with the third judicial review application heard before the same learned judge, where the applicants are different parties, namely Yong Thy Chong and Oriengroup Sdn Bhd, with the impugned publication being a book entitled "The March to Putrajaya - Malaysia's New Era Is at Hand." This particular publication was also banned under the same Order No 5. There is also an appeal lodged against Her Ladyship's decision on this third judicial review application as well, but this appeal has been heard by a different panel of this Court. This present judgment that we are rendering is therefore not concerned with the decision with regard to this publication ("The March to Putrajaya - Malaysia's New Era Is at Hand").

Order No 5

[4] Order No 5, dated 25 May 2010 and signed by the 2nd respondent, for and on behalf of the 1st respondent, states:

"Larangan

2. Pencetakan, pengimportan, penghasilan, penghasilan semula, penerbitan, penjualan, pengeluaran, pengelilingan, pengedaran atau pemilikan hasil penerbitan yang diperihalkan dalam Jadual dan yang memudaratkan ketenteraman awam adalah dilarang secara mutlak di seluruh Malaysia."

From its wording, the prohibition imposed on the two publications is wide-ranging and absolute, and based on the reason that they "are prejudicial to public order."

Section 7 , PPPA

[5] The ground "prejudicial to public order" appears as one of the grounds in s 7 of the PPPA which empowers the Minister to control "undesirable publications". The full provision reads:

"7. (1) If the Minister is satisfied that any publication contains any article, caricature, photograph, report, notes, writing, sound, music, statement or any other thing which is in any manner prejudicial to or likely to be prejudicial to public order, morality, security, or which is likely to alarm public opinion, or which is or is likely to be contrary to any law or is otherwise prejudicial to or is likely to be prejudicial to public interest or national interest, he may in his absolute discretion by order published in the Gazette prohibit, either absolutely or subject to such conditions as may be prescribed, the printing, importation, production, reproduction, publishing, sale, issue, circulation, distribution or possession of the publication and future publications of the publisher concerned."

As can be readily appreciated, at least on its apparent wording, any order prohibiting an undesirable publication is made on the Minister's "satisfaction" which he may exercise "in his absolute discretion" by an order published in the Gazette and supported by any or more of the grounds stated in this statutory provision. Despite the seeming breadth of the Minister's power and discretion, the PPPA does not purport to provide an exclusion clause for a s 7 exercise of discretion. In other words, there is no statutory provision to disallow challenge in a Court of law on the ground that the Minister's decision