This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 23, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court has barred any uploading of court recordings on social media, after a clip of Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s SRC International Sdn Bhd trial was uploaded by an ex-aide of the former premier last week.

Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, however, stopped short of ruling that Isham Jalil, who on last Friday and Saturday uploaded two clips of the proceedings, was in contempt of court over the incident.

“Any form of recording is not permitted, not only live streaming, and this includes the CRT (court recording transcription). The CRT is supplied for the express purpose of transcribing, and not to upload [it].

“I hope both the defence and prosecution who are officers of the court abide by this. I would like to remind everyone to refrain from making comments that may be prejudicial to the trial and constitute as contempt of court,” said Justice Mohd Nazlan.

The matter was raised in court yesterday by prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram, who pointed out that while the CRT can be issued to lawyers for reference, they have undertaken not to distribute the copy.

“They (lawyers) have undertaken not to distribute [the CRT]. We want the court order so that no third parties can upload the court proceedings,” said Sithambaram.

Lead defence counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, however, responded that everyone has as much rights to view the proceedings as those “who are watching the live proceedings next door” — referring to the media following the trial in a separate video link room.

“I am surprised. We were the ones who started this trial with a [request for a media] gag order and they objected. If this had been given, the problem would not occur,” Shafee added.

Najib is facing seven charges for the alleged siphoning of RM42 million from 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s former subsidiary SRC into his personal bank accounts.