PUTRAJAYA — In an unprecedented move, the Court of Appeal today used video conferencing to conduct proceedings on appeals in three civil lawsuits on dependency claim.
The proceedings of the appeals, which involved three individuals against a transportation company, were live-streamed to the public on the judiciary’s official website www.kehakiman.gov.my.
The proceedings, which started at 10 am and took more than an hour, showed three judges, lawyers and a court deputy registrar presiding on the matter via video conferencing from their homes and offices.
The three judges were Datuk Kamardin Hashim, Datuk Lee Swee Seng and Datuk Azizah Nawawi.
Lawyer K.F. Ee represented the three appellants — Zhoa Fangliang, Jin Haifang and Zhu CunChua — while lawyers Azizi Mohd Sarit@Ahmad Shaghir and Nurul Dalilah Darmawi represented Syarikat Pengangkutan Satu Hati Sdn Bhd.
When contacted, Azizi said the proceedings were conducted through video conferencing via Skype.
He said that before the start of the proceedings, the court recorded the parties’ consent for the hearing to be live-streamed.
The appeals concerned a case involving a bus crash in Johor on Oct 7, 2015, in which four tourists from China were killed.
The appellants sued the company for loss of dependency for the demise of their children and spouse and one appellant made claims for bodily injury sustained in the accident.
The three appeals were heard together since they involved similar issues on the stay of execution.
Today’s hearing by the Court of Appeal was in respect of the appeals against the stay of execution order granted by the High Court to the company pending disposal of appeal in the Court of Appeal.
After hearing submissions by counsel, the three-member panel led by Justice Kamardin dismissed the three appeals, ruling that there was no merit.
“We also find no appealable error that warranted an appellate intervention committed by the learned High Court Judge in exercising his discretion in allowing the stay of execution of the judgment pending the disposal of the appeal before this court,” Justice Kamardin said.
The Chief Registrar Office of the Federal Court yesterday announced that in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Movement Control Order (MCO), the Malaysian Judiciary body has conducted hearing of specific cases online.
Courts nationwide have been ordered to close following the MCO, which came into force on March 18.
However, proceedings for remands, new cases and bails are to be carried out as usual.
— BERNAMA
