JUDGMENT

Gopal Sri Ram JCA:

[1] This is the plaintiff's appeal against the judgment of the High Court dismissing his claim for damages for an alleged libel committed on him by the defendants. The appeal was allowed and a retrial ordered at the close of arguments. Two points were argued: one procedural; the other substantive. I will deal with each. But first here are the facts.

[2] The plaintiff was a newspaper vendor. He distributed Chinese newspapers. One of the newspapers he distributed was the "Sin Chew Jit Poh". It was published by the second defendant. The first defendant was the paper's chief editor. The newspaper sold for 60 sen a copy and the plaintiff received a commission of 18 sen. Later, the second defendant introduced a coupon system to replace the payment of commission. Apparently it was financially less advantageous than the commission system. The plaintiff was unhappy. He asked to be compensated. The defendants published an article about the plaintiff. It was in the Chinese language. In other words, it was in a foreign language, that is to say, in a language other than the language of the court. The plaintiff's case is that the second defendant's article had alleged that the plaintiff had asked for "tea money" to distribute the second defendant's newspaper. He said it was defamatory of him. He brought an action claiming damages for libel.

[3] Eventually, the plaintiff's action came on for trial. What transpired at that trial constitutes the procedural point. Here is how it emerged. The plaintiff called his evidence and then closed his case. Nowhere during his case did the plaintiff call a witness to prove the contents of the impugned article in the language of the court. That would have been either in the English language or Bahasa Malaysia. Just after he had closed his case, counsel for the plaintiff realised his error. He applied to reopen the plaintiff's case to call the translator. At that point in time counsel for the defendants made a singularly unhelpful, unwise and erroneous suggestion that was proven to be seriously prejudicial to the plaintiff's case. He said that the defendants should be permitted to open, present their evidence and then close their case and that the plaintiff should then file a formal motion to reopen his case. Surprisingly counsel for the plaintiff accepted this suggestion. So did the court. Counsel for the plaintiff and the court probably did not realise the serious injustice the plaintiff was bound to suffer by the course suggested by the counsel for the defendants. It meant that the plaintiff would be precluded from putting his case on the true meaning of the words "tea money" to the defendants' witnesses. And that is precisely what happened. On each occasion that counsel for the plaintiff asked about the defamatory meaning of the words appearing in the article, counsel for the defendants raised an objection which was upheld by the trial judge. But, entirely to the credit of the plaintiff's counsel, he managed, during cross examination, to obtain an admission from the defendants' witness that the plaintiff had asked for "tea money". That in my view was sufficient proof of the plaintiff's averment that those words had been attributed to the plaintiff. In a civil case, one party's evidence is the other's as well. So, a plaintiff may rely on the defendant's evidence to prove his or her case. The converse is also true. See, the observations of Hashim Yeop A Sani SCJ in M Mahadevan v. S Lourdenadin [1988] 1 CLJ 601; [1988] 1 CLJ (Rep) 168.

[4] At the close of the plaintiff's case, his counsel applied by way of a formal notice of motion to reopen his client's case and to call the translator to formally prove the contents of the impugned article. That application was opposed by the defendants and dismissed by the court. No reasons have been given by the learned judge for refusing the plaintiff's application. But we have the benefit of the note of the defendant's argument. It is an argu