JUDGMENT

Heliliah Yusof J:

In this action, the four plaintiffs are claiming against the defendants damages for libel in respect of certain words which are contained in an article entitled "Rearview Glimpse of 1995 Politics"which appeared on p. 2 of the issue of the Malay Mail for 1 January 1996. The article was a review prepared by the 1st defendant. The 2nd defendant is and was at all material times employed by the 3rd defendant as editor of the Malay Mail. The 3rd defendant is the publisher and printer of the Malay Mail. The plaintiffs at p. 34 of the pleading state:

On page 2 of the issue of The Malay Mail for 1st January 1996, the First Defendant wrote and published and the Second and Third Defendants published or caused to be published prominently the following words of and concerning the Plaintiffs and of and concerning them in the way of their profession and in relation to their conduct therein which are defamatory of the Plaintiffs:

It is to be stated at the outset that there is no contention that there has been a publication and it would appear that the defendants have chosen not to advance plea of justification. Hence the issues that are necessary for determination are firstly, whether the words that have been published are defamatory and secondly, whether the words are defamatory of the plaintiffs. Before examining the two issues it is necessary to refer to the words that have been complained of and which have been pleaded in para. 7 of the statement of claim. The words complained of form part of an article entitled "Rearview Glimpse of 1995 Politics"published in the 1 January 1996 issue of the Malay Mail. A copy of the article in which the words complained of have been included is found at p. 1 of encl. (44) bundles of documents. At the material time of the publication of that article the plaintiffs were advocates and solicitors practicing in the firm of Messrs. Nazri Aziz & Wong and presently are practicing in the same. As at 1 January 1996 the four plaintiffs were the partners of Messrs. Nazri Aziz & Wong. Messrs. Nazri Aziz & Wong was formed on 12 July 1982 as a partnership between Dato' Seri Mohamed Nazri bin Abdul Aziz and the 1st plaintiff pursuant to a deed of partnership dated 20 August 1982. There was disclosed the deed of partnership dated 16 September 1991 which was entered into between the 1st plaintiff and Dato' Seri Nazri Aziz. Subsequently, it transpired that other deeds of partnership were also concluded to admit the 2nd plaintiff as a third partner as well as the 3rd plaintiff as the fourth partner.

On 13 October 1994 the Bar Council was informed that the fourth plaintiff had been appointed as resident branch partner of the branch office of Messrs. Nazri Aziz & Wong. In a letter dated 18 May 1995 the firm of Nazri Aziz & Wong informed the Bar Council that Dato' Seri Nazri Aziz had been appointed then as the Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department on 8 May 1995, and had therefore stopped practice and left the partnership of Messrs. Nazri Aziz & Wong. Although Dato' Seri Nazri Aziz had ceased his legal practice and partnership in Messrs. Nazri Aziz & Wong on 18 May 1995, the remaining partners (ie, all the plaintiffs) continued with the partnership of the firm under the same name of Nazri Aziz & Wong as stipulated in the deeds of partnership. The article as mentioned above was found in 1 January 1996 issue of the Malay Mail. The specific parts of the article relevant for the present action are as follows:

Datuk Nazri Aziz: Last year, he led the Umno Youth charge that rejected Rahim's leadership and then claimed he was insulted when he felt the Umno leadership did not respect the movement's wishes.

He spat out some pretty unbecoming words against the Umno leadership, especially on El Presidente, but had to gobble them back and apologised publicly.

Now, in a turnaround, he wants to give the Youth leader post back to Rahim on a silver platter. Hope his law firm is doing decent business... (em