Sarawak's long-time Chief Minister Taib Mahmud is appealing against the Court of Appeal's decision on Jan 3 which ruled to preserve three paragraphs in Malaysiakini's defence in his suit against the portal.

Malaysiakini's lawyer Fahri Azzat said the Federal Court has now fixed Feb 23 for case management.

"This is for the court to fix a date to hear Taib's leave application. His solicitors have requested for it to be done via video-conferencing. We have consented."

NONE In the apex court, it is not an automatic right to appeal in civil cases, as leave must be granted.

Taib ( right ) had in 2007, filed a suit against Malaysiakin i where he named the portal and its editor-in-chief, Steven Gan as defendants.

This is over a series of articles highlighting reports on the Japanese authorities arresting members of a shipping cartel transporting logs from Sarawak.

The cartel members had allegedly paid Regent Star, a Hong Kong-based paper manufacturing company reportedly linked to Taib and his family, RM32 million in kickbacks.

The issue had also been reported by numerous news organisations in Japan and elsewhere. Malaysiakini had followed up with its own report a week later, and followed this up with its own special issue on the matter, ' RM32 mil kickbacks - tip of the iceberg' .

Appellate court decision

On Jan 3, the appellate court in a unanimous decision, ruled against Taib's application to remove three crucial paragraphs from Malaysiakini's defence.

It only allowed the Sarawak strongman's application to strike out a paragraph in the defence namely the chief minister's suit was an abuse of the court process.

The three parts of Malaysiakini's defence challenged by Taib are paragraphs 16, 18 and 19.

The three paragraphs which remain intact are paragraph 16, which outlines Malaysiakini's justification for the article, paragraph 18 which concerns comments by the readers, and paragraph 19, which describes Archipelago Shipping's alleged connection with Taib's family.

The decision was unanimously made by a three-member panel led by justice Sulong Matjeraie. The two other judges were justices Sulaiman Daud and Abdul Wahab Patail.

In May 28, 2009, Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Justice Zabariah Mohd Yusof in 2009 dismissed his application to strike out the four paragraphs from Malaysiakini's defence statement.

In her judgment, Zabariah said that the paragraphs that Taib wanted removed contained facts that were relevant to the defence.

"In paragraph 18, are the comments made by readers. Since a defence of fair comment has been pleaded, the paragraph is relevant and should not be struck off.

"The facts pleaded in paragraph 19 shows that there is a connection between Archipelago Shipping and the plantiff's family. Therefore, they are relevant," said Zabariah.