Defamation

What is defamation?
The act of making false statements about another person
which may bring damage to his reputation.

Sim v Stretch [1936] 2 All ER 1237

Lord Atkin defamation is a statement whether oral,
temporary or permanent which injure a persons reputation
by exposing him to hatred, contempt and ridicule or which
tends to lower him in the esteem of right thinking
members of society.
 Malaysian Defamation Act 1957 and Penal Code

Govern the law on cyber defamation and aimed to protect

the interest, reputation and the image of a person or an
entity from being tarnished by the irresponsible people.

Civil suit or criminal suit

Kian Lup Construction v Hong Kong Malaysia Bhd
[2002] 7 CLJ 32

Plaintiff must prove three elements of tort of defamation:

1) the plaintiff must show that the statement bears
defamatory imputations
2) the statement must refer to or reflect upon the
plaintiffs reputation and
3) the statement must have been published to a third
person by the defendant.
National Union of Bank Employees v Noorzeela
Binti Lamin and another suit [2014] 7 MLJ 31
The plaintiff is a registered trade union that represents clerical and non-
clerical workers in the banking industry in Peninsular Malaysia.
The plaintiff alleged that the defendants had published a leaflet, comprising
five pages, which contained comments that were defamatory of the NUBE
and its National Executive Council members.
The defendant denied the act of making such comments on Facebook, and
claimed that his sister operated the Facebook account, also testifying that
someone maybe had hacked his Facebook.
The plaintiff thus submitted that the leaflet embarrassed the NUBE and its
EXCO and disparaged its reputation as a trade union in that it led anyone
who read the leaflet will think that they were all dishonest, irresponsible and
mismanaging the NUBEs funds and operations for their own personal gain.
The court finds the defendants have failed to prove justification.
Gloco Malaysia Sdn Bhd v Lam Ming
Yuet
The plaintiff sued its former employee for posting her experience working with
the plaintiff on the popular forum LowYat.net.
The plaintiff brings this action against the defendant for libel in connection
with certain postings that the defendant had made against the plaintiff in
an online social media network called forum.lowyat.net.
The plaintiff seeks general, aggravated and exemplary damages
against the defendant, interest and costs. The plaintiff also seeks an
injunction restraining the defendant from publishing the defamatory
statements, and for an order compelling the defendant to remove the
entire thread containing the defamatory statements from
theforum.lowyat.net
The High Court dismissed the plaintiffs action on, among others, the grounds
that such postings were not defamatory. The court accept the complaints
words are of fair comment of the defendant on the plaintiff and with no malice.