Asmaniza Abdullah & Co

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the application of the Chase levels of meaning and the defences of justification and qualified privilege to a social-media defamation, and the grounds on which a judgment in default and an unless order may be set aside.

Asmaniza Abdullah & Co appears in the corpus as counsel in land, defamation and civil-procedure litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) in both English and Bahasa Malaysia.

One matter concerned a claim to land. Acting for the plaintiffs, the firm appeared in a dispute, argued in Malay, over a tuntutan hak milik tanah (claim to title of land), where the questions were whether an agreement created a trust over the registered proprietor, whether a private caveat that had been lodged was valid, and whether any damages should be awarded.

A notable matter concerns social-media defamation. Acting for the respondent, the firm appeared in an appeal over a libel published on TikTok that alleged the sending of pornographic videos (video ghairah) and the commission of adultery (zina), where the court examined whether the words imputed actual guilt or mere suspicion by reference to the Chase levels of meaning, whether the imputation fell within Chase Level 1, and the defences of justification, fair comment and qualified privilege as a reply to an attack, together with whether counter-allegations of immorality were disproportionate and whether malice or recklessness was established. The appeal also engaged the plainly-wrong standard for appellate interference with findings of fact, the trial judge having failed to appreciate a fatal admission.

In civil-procedure work the firm acted for the defendant in an application to set aside a discovery order, an unless order and a judgment in default under Order 24 rule 17 and Order 92 rule 4 of the Rules of Court 2012, where the applicant blamed the inaction of previous solicitors and asserted a bona fide defence on the merits. The firm's record is a general civil-litigation practice engaging land, reputation and the setting aside of default orders across both languages. The defamation work in particular reflects the growing prominence of disputes arising from publications on social-media platforms such as TikTok, where the traditional principles of libel, the levels of imputed meaning and the established defences must be applied to allegations broadcast to a wide online audience, and where the appellate courts continue to police the boundary of when a trial judge's findings of fact may be disturbed.