The Court of Appeal here today dismissed the appeal of Batu member of Parliament Tian Chua on his conviction of assaulting a policeman four years ago on technical grounds.
A three-man panel led by Court of Appeal judge Datin Paduka Zaleha Zahari unanimously ruled that Tian Chua's appeal was incompetent because he had filed the notice of appeal outside of the time frame required under the law.
He was appealing against the June 17, 2010 decision of the Kuala Lumpur Court to uphold his conviction but reduce the fine to RM2,000 in default two months' jail, for biting the policeman. The court, however, set aside a six months' jail sentence.
At the High Court, Tian Chua's status as a MP had caused intense debate among politicians and lawyers over the cut-off point of the fine because Article 48 of the Federal Constitution states that a MP would be disqualified if he was sentenced to jail for a term of not less than one year or to a fine not less than RM2,000.
Outside the court after the verdict today, Tian Chua's lawyer Amer Hamzah Arshad told reporters that Tian Chua remains an MP despite the dismissal of his appeal.
Amer Hamzah said this was because the High Court judge Datuk Ghazali Cha in his judgment had said the RM2,000 he imposed on Tian Chua, whose full name is Chua Tian Chang, 48, was never intended to disqualify him as an MP and was to avoid a by-election being held at the Batu constituency.
The Kuala Lumpur Magistrate's Court had sentenced Tian Chua to six months' jail and RM3,000 fine after finding him guilty of causing hurt to Constable Rosyaidi Anuar, 23, at the entrance of Parliament House here at 10.45am on Dec 11, 2007.
Tian Chua appealed to the High Court. He subsequently filed an application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal against the decision of the High Court on June 29 last year, since his case began in the Magistrate's Court.
He was subsequently granted leave to appeal on Aug 30 last year.
Today the hearing of his appeal was fixed before the three-man panel. The two other judges on the bench were Justices Datuk Clement Allan Skinner and Datuk Balia Yusof Wali.
At the onset of the appeal proceeding, deputy public prosecutor Mohd Hanafiah Zakaria raised a preliminary objection to the appeal stating that Tian Chua had filed his notice of appeal on Oct 6 last year, which was a delay of 22 days.
The Court of Appeal, when granting leave to appeal to Tian Chua, had given him 14 days from Aug 30 last year to file a notice of appeal.
Justice Balia, in delivering the decision, said the prosecution's preliminary objection was founded.
"The appellant tried to explain the delay of filing the notice of appeal which he said was due to erroneous filing at the wrong court registry," he said.
Balia said Tian Chua's lawyers were then informed by the court registry on Oct 5 last year they had filed the notice of appeal at the wrong court registry and his lawyers subsequently took steps to file the notice of appeal at the correct registry.
"Nevertheless, the judge said Tian Chua failed to take steps to file in a notice of motion to request for extension of time to file in his notice of appeal," he said.
Balia said it was after Hanafiah brought up the preliminary objection that the notice of appeal was filed outside the time frame, that Tian Chua sought to regularise his appeal.
Earlier, Amer Hamzah told the panel that he has prepared the notice of motion requesting extension of time and would be filing it to regularise the appeal.
Balia, in his decision, however, said the panel was of the view that it was too late for Tian Chua to file the notice of motion for extension of time.
The court dismissed Tian Chua's final appeal without a hearing on its merits
