The Court of Appeal has refused to furnish its notes of proceeding on jailed ex-deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim's appeal against his sodomy conviction, said lawyer Sankara Nair.

Sankara told malaysiakini that the refusal has caused difficulties for Anwar's lawyers in filing their affidavits to support his appeal against the sodomy conviction.

Anwar has earlier applied to the Appellate Court to review its own decision in dismissing his appeal, where the court has rejected claims by Anwar that he had filed a notice of alibi, which would have strengthened his case.

The notice of alibi sought to show that Anwar was elsewhere when the sodomy offence was committed.

Since the court's judgment disputed that Anwar's alibi notice had been filed, the lawyers now will have to rely on the notes of proceedings to show that this matter was raised before the judges, who had agreed that such a notice was indeed filed.

On Dec 10 last year, confusion arose as to whether or not the Court of Appeal judges had received copies of Anwar's alibi notice during the proper appeal.

While Anwar's lawyers insisted that they had submitted the copies through a court officer, the court record showed no trace of the documents.

Later, the lawyers told the court that they would be filing affidavits to back their claim.

No reason for rejection

Anwar's lawyers subsequently wrote to the Court of Appeal registry asking for the notes of court proceeding to support their application.

"We need to refer to the notes recorded by the judges in order to file the affidavits so we had written them a letter for it.

"But recently the court's registrar Hasnah Mohd Hashim replied that the request cannot be fulfilled as it is not the Court of Appeal's practice to provide lawyers with notes of proceeding," he said.

Because of the court's rejection, Anwar had made an official application seeking the court to furnish his lawyers with the document.

This application will be heard on Monday by Appeallate Court justices Pajan Singh Gill, Richard Malanjum and Hashim Mohd Yusof.

"In the (official) application, we had stated that there was no reason for the court not to provide the lawyers with the notes as they are public documents."

Anwar and his adopted brother Sukma Darmawan Sasmitaat Madja have unprecedentedly applied for the court to review its own decision dismissing their appeals against the sodomy conviction.

Judgement flawed

They claimed that, despite having made a decision and a written judgment, the court has inherent jurisdiction to correct any manifest error that has prejudiced them.

They added that the judgment was flawed because the judges concluded that Anwar had not given an alibi notice, when the prosecutor had conceded that this had been done.

Speaking on another issue, Sankara also said that he had written another letter to the court to enquire when the court would be delivering its decision on Anwar'a bail application.

"My clients feels that there has been an ordinate delay. We feel that the bail issue is very critical considering that Anwar's health has since worsened," he said.

The jailed politician repeatedly criticised the court's failure to decide on his bail condition and accused the court of acing under the influence of the executive.