(Sept 29): The Kuala Lumpur High Court will hear on October 13 the government’s stay application to stop The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily from resuming publication, pending the outcome of its appeal.

Lawyer Darryl Goon, who is representing the publisher, The Edge Communications Sdn Bhd, said the date was fixed today after a case management before judge Datuk Asmabi Mohamad.

On September 21, the judge revoked the home minister’s decision to suspend both publications for three months which was to expire on October 26.

The government has also filed its appeal in the Court of Appeal to reverse Asmabi’s findings. No date has been fixed.

Asmabi, in allowing the judicial review by the publisher, said the respondent (minister) had breached Section 7(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.

She said the respondent did not comply with procedural fairness as he did not give particulars of the suspension to the applicant.

The judge said the minister had taken irrelevant consideration to impose a blanket ban of three months.

Asmabi said the respondent should have been more careful to issue the order as it had affected the livelihood of those employed by the applicant.

She said the Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was “in doubt” on whether The Edge had published its articles by relying on allegedly unverified information on online news portals, especially The Sarawak Report. – The Malaysian Insider