LIM TUCK SUN v 1. ) CELCOM (MALAYSIA) BERHAD 2. ) TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES INDUSTRIES BERHAD 3. ) TAN SRI DATO' TAJUDIN BIN RAMLI 4. ) BISTAMAM BIN RAMLI 5. ) DATO' LIM KHENG YEW 6. ) DIETER SIEBER 7. ) DR FRANK-REINHARD BARTSCH 8. ) JOACHIM GRONAU 9. ) JOERG ANDREAS BOY 10. ) AXEL HASS 11. ) OLIVER TIM AXMANN 12. ) TELEKOM MALAYSIA BERHAD 13. ) DETEASIA HOLDING GMBH 14. ) BERINGIN MURINI SDN BHD PENCELAH MALAYSIAN BAR

Case Significance

Addresses the appealability of a judgment written to clarify events surrounding a circulated trial video clip, turning on the statutory definition of a "decision" (section 3 and section 67(1) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964) and whether a ruling made in the course of a trial disposes of the parties' rights, alongside recusal and intervention applications.

This Court of Appeal matter concerns interlocutory applications arising in long-running litigation, in which the Malaysian Bar appeared as an intervener. The applications before the court were an application to recuse the High Court Judge, an application for leave to intervene, and an application to expunge parts of the High Court Judge's judgment. The background lay in the wide circulation of a short audio-video clip said to be a brief snippet of the trial, in relation to which the High Court Judge had written the judgment that was under challenge.

The applications invoked Order 15 rule 6(2)(b)(i) and (or) (ii) and Order 92 rule 4 of the Rules of Court 2012. A central question was whether the decision embodied in the impugned judgment was appealable to the Court of Appeal, which required the court to consider the definition of a "decision" under section 3 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 and section 67(1) of that Act. The court examined whether the impugned judgment, which had been written to clarify the sequence of events concerning the video clip, was a discretionary judgment, whether it was necessary, whether the order was made "in the course of a trial", and whether it disposed of the rights of the parties in the main suits.

These questions bear on the appealability threshold: under the statutory definition, not every ruling made during a trial constitutes an appealable "decision", the touchstone being whether the ruling finally disposes of the rights of the parties. The court's analysis of whether a judgment written to explain the circumstances of a circulated trial clip amounted to such a decision, and of the related recusal and intervention applications in which the Malaysian Bar sought to participate, situates the matter at the intersection of appealability, judicial recusal and the court's control over its own record through the expunging of material. The judgment illustrates how the definition of an appealable decision operates where a ruling is made in the course of a trial rather than finally determining the parties' rights.