JULY 1 — In the case of Lokman Noor Adam v AG v Lokman Noor Adam [2020], the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had issued Lokman Noor Adam with a notice to show cause why contempt proceedings should not be taken against him for, allegedly, threatening a witness in an ongoing criminal trial both in a video interview he had given and in a police report he had lodged.
It was alleged that Lokman’s actions also constituted a threat to other witnesses coming forward to testify at the trial.
Following the expiry of the show cause notice, the Attorney General (AG) successfully obtained an ex parte order of court granting him leave to commence committal proceedings against Lokman.
Lokman applied to set aside the order, raising various arguments including that: (a) only the court had the power/jurisdiction to issue the show cause notice under Order 52 rule 2B of the Rules of Court 2012 (ROC) and not the MACC; and (b) the show cause notice was not a step by step procedure but should have been issued together or simultaneously with the AG’s ex parte leave application.
High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah (as he then was) dismissed the application to set aside the ex parte leave order. The learned judge ruled as follows:
(1) In committal proceedings under Order 52 ROC, the court is only invoked at the stage when application for leave to file committal proceedings is made under Order 52 rule 3 ROC. Accordingly, the notice to show cause under rule 2B may be issued by a party other than the court itself.
(2) The procedure from rule 2B onwards is intended to be a step by step procedure. The notice to show cause under rule 2B has to be served first before application to court for leave to commence committal proceedings was made under rule 3.
Dissatisfied with the decision of the learned High Court judge, Lokman appealed to the Court of Appeal (COA). The COA heard lengthy submissions, took the view that there were no merits in the appeal and that there were no appealable errors.
COA judge Ahmad Nasfy, who delivered the judgement of the court, said:
“The High Court was correct to reach the conclusion that rule 2B pertains to the step by step process in securing leave…. [P]rior to leave, notice must be given to the proposed contemnor an opportunity to show cause and that service of the notice must be effected personally… [T]he interpretation [of rule 2B] by the learned High Court judge is correct [with] which we agree.
“The learned High Court judge had correctly dismissed the application to set aside the order granting leave. Therefore, we unanimously dismissed this appeal.”
Guess who the opposing counsels were before the COA. They were Muhammad Shafee Abdullah for Lokman and Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar for the AG.
The latter is the current AG.
Now, the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) has been reported to have given Shafee Abdullah seven days to explain remarks he made likening a court proceeding to “a Nazi-Germany kind of hearing”, which the AGC claims amounts to contempt of court.
The seven days to explain is in a show-cause notice reportedly sighted by the New Straits Times. https://www.nst.com.my/news/crime-courts/2025/06/1236763/shafee-gets-show-cause-notice-agc-over-nazi-germany-hearing-jibe
The notice is a step by step procedure under rule 2B above which has to be served first before application to court for leave to commence committal proceedings is made under rule 3 of Order 52 ROC.
If the AGC proceeds with committal proceedings, it will pit Dusuki against Shafee not as counsels but as applicant against alleged contemnor.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
