KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 21): The Edge Financial Daily will hit the streets tomorrow, after the High Court today revoked the home minister’s decision to suspend The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily for three months.

Accordingly, The Edge Weekly will resume its publication this coming Saturday.

The Home Ministry had suspended the publishing permit of The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily for three months effective from July 27, over the two publications’ coverage of the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal.

Earlier today, High Court Judge Datuk Asmabi Mohamad in allowing the judicial review application said the respondent (Home Ministry) had breached Section 7(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 (PPPA).

“The respondent did not comply with procedural fairness as he did not give particulars of suspension to the applicant,” she was quoted as saying by The Malaysian Insider.

The judge said the minister had taken irrelevant consideration to impose a blanket ban of three months and directed the Home Ministry to pay RM15,000 in costs to the company.

In a brief statement today, The Edge Media Group lauded the decision of Asmabi to quash the suspension of The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily.

“It vindicates our position that the suspension was unfair and without justification,” it said.

In a letter issued in July, the ministry stated that the papers’ coverage of the 1MDB scandal was “prejudicial or likely to be prejudicial to public order, security or likely to alarm public opinion or is likely to be prejudicial to public and national interests”.

This is the first time a publisher had sought legal recourse and won, following the suspension of its coverage of debt-ridden 1MDB.

In delivery her decision today, The Malaysian Insider reported Asmabi as saying that the home minister had made a “blanket allegation” without specifying the articles that were alleged to be undesirable publications.

“The publisher was put in a ‘difficult position’ as it had published 300 articles since 2009 on 1MDB and could not give a specific response to the general claim in the show-cause letter,” the judge said, adding the respondent also failed to respond to the publisher’s request to specify the questionable articles.

“Bearing in mind that what is being affected here is quite a large thing such as revenue, livelihood of personnel under the applicant, the respondent should have been more careful in preparing a show-cause letter in a better manner to notify the applicant which are the relevant articles said to be undesirable or had infringed provisions or guidelines,” said Asmabi.