NG WAI PIN v ONG YEW TEIK

Case Significance

Holds that questions of witness immunity, the finality of litigation and the availability of malicious-prosecution and perjury-based claims in civil proceedings should be tested at trial rather than resolved on a striking-out application.

This Federal Court decision, comprising four civil appeals heard together, concerns whether long-standing rules protecting the integrity of litigation bar a fresh civil claim founded on evidence given in earlier proceedings. The respondent had sued the appellants, alleging in substance that they had given false evidence, and the appellants applied to strike out the claim under Order 18 rule 19 of the Rules of Court as disclosing no reasonable cause of action. The High Court struck out the claim, but the Court of Appeal reversed that decision and remitted the matter for full trial. On further appeal, the Court addressed several questions of principle: whether witnesses enjoy absolute immunity from civil liability for evidence given in judicial proceedings; how the doctrine of the finality of litigation applies; whether the tort of malicious prosecution is available in respect of civil proceedings in Malaysia; and whether fraud based on perjury constitutes a recognised and actionable tort. The Court was conscious of the need to guard against the abuse of such claims by unscrupulous litigants, which the immunity and finality doctrines exist to prevent. Weighing these considerations, it concluded that the questions raised were not suitable for summary determination on a striking-out application and that the claim should proceed to be tested at a full trial. Finding no appealable error in the Court of Appeal's decision to remit the cases, the Court dismissed the four appeals with costs. The judgment is significant for its treatment of witness immunity, the finality of litigation and the boundaries of malicious prosecution and perjury-based claims in Malaysian civil law. The decision preserves the balance between protecting the integrity and finality of litigation, on the one hand, and allowing a genuinely arguable claim founded on alleged perjury to be tested at trial, on the other, and it declines to shut out such a claim on a summary basis.