KUALA LUMPUR (Mar 18): Court of Appeal judge Justice Datuk Nor Bee Ariffin has recused herself from leading the panel of judges presiding over the hearing of an appeal by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the Federal Territories Pardons Board against the High Court's refusal to strike out a challenge brought by lawyer Mohd Khairul Azam Abdul Aziz.  

During court proceedings today via Zoom, Nor Bee said she decided to recuse herself from this case considering that she was the High Court judge who had dismissed a previous judicial review application by Anwar and his family back in 2016. 

At the time, Anwar and his family were seeking leave to apply for a judicial review to quash the decision by the Pardons Board that has rejected his petition against his conviction of the sodomy charge against former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan. The petition was filed by Anwar’s family after his sentence was upheld by the Federal Court.

"So in line of the fact that in the present appeal, the person who successfully sought the pardon is the very same Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, there is an application by the respondent for my recusal," Nor Bee said today.  

The application for Nor Bee's recusal was made by lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla, counsel for respondent Khairul Azam.  

Anwar's lawyer Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram, however, said he had no objection for the judge to be the chair of the panel judges. Besides Nor Bee, the other Court of Appeal judges in the three-member bench were S Nantha Balan and Datuk Lee Heng Cheong.  

As such, the hearing was postponed and a new appeal date will be fixed by the court registry.

In this appeal, Anwar and the Pardons Board are seeking a ruling by the Court of Appeal to overturn the decision by the High Court which had dismissed their bid to strike out Khairul Azam's suit against the pardon obtained by the opposition leader for his second sodomy conviction.

High Court Judge Datuk Akhtar Tahir ruled that Khairul Azam had locus standi (legal standing) to file the challenge which seeks a declaration that the pardon granted to Anwar in 2018 was illegal and invalid.

Khairul Azam, in his suit filed on Feb 26, 2020, named Anwar and the Federal Territories Pardons Board as defendants. 

To recap, a few days after the 14th General Election, which saw Pakatan Harapan taking over as government, Anwar was freed from serving his prison sentence after the then Yang di-Pertuan Agong consented to grant him a royal pardon, expunging all past convictions.

Anwar previously began serving the five-year sentence in February 2015.