The hearing is to set aside the High Court judgment that he is not immune from legal action, following suits brought by former Commercial Crime Investigation director Ramli Yusof and lawyer Rosli Dahlan.
The two suits are related to what is known as the Copgate affair.
The two judges who removed themselves from hearing the appeal were Justice Alizatul Khair Othman and Justice P Nalini.
Justice Alizatul recused herself as she was the KL High Court judge who dismissed Rosli's judicial review application to challenge the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission order for him to declare his assets.
Justice Nalini was one of the members in the Court of Appeal panel which upheld the KL High Court judgment awarding Rosli RM300,000 in damages, following suits he filed against the MACC and New Straits Times for defamation.
Following this, the Court of Appeal has fixed April 1 next year to hear Abdul Gani's appeal before another panel.
Rosli was represented by Chethan Jethwani, while lawyer Harvinderjit Singh appeared for Ramli. Senior lawyer Cecil Abraham appeared for Abdul Gani.
Chethan had pointed out to Justice Alizatul at the start of today’s proceedings that she was involved in the judicial review application by Rosli, and this led to her recusing herself and Justice Nalini to also withdraw herself.
It was reported on April 11 this year that Judicial Commissioner Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera has dismissed Abdul Gani’s application to strike out the two suits brought by Ramli and Rosli, where he ruled the AG was not immune to legal action.
‘AG has no total immunity’
Vazeer Alam wrote that the notion of absolute immunity for a public servant, even when mala fide or abuse of power in the exercise of their prosecutorial power is alleged in the pleadings, is anathema to modern day notions of accountability.
“I agree that deliberate abuse of power by a person holding a public office is tortuous and is referred to as misfeasance in public office.
“Such a tortuous act can arise when an officer actuated by malice, for example, by personal spite or a desire to injure for improper reasons, abuses his power,” the judicial commissioner had said in his lengthy judgment.
Ramli and Rosli named Abdul Gani, former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan and the MACC officers claiming abuse of power, malfeasance in the performance of public duty, malicious prosecution and prosecutorial misconduct among others.
Ramli had filed a RM128.5 million suit, while Rosli had filed a separate suit amounting to RM48 million against the same parties.
At present, thi
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