He once ran a telecommunications company. He plays music. He is a father of three. On 25 May 2019, a national newspaper placed his life on its front page beneath the headline “In Public, CEO, in Private Accused of being a Molester”, and continued inside: “Ex-CEO allegedly molested own kids”.¹Jason Jonathan Lo v Star Media Group Berhad & Ors (Court of Appeal, Malaysia; Civil Appeal Nos B-02(NCVC)(W)-2076-12/2023 and B-02(NCVC)(W)-2096-12/2023, 15 July 2026) [7] (“Jason Lo”).

The paper never printed his name. It did not need to. He was never charged with any offence. The police closed their file with the classification “No Further Action”.²Jason Lo (n 1) [8]. But by then the accusation had gone everywhere the newspaper goes, and then onward again, by Facebook, to everywhere the newspaper does not.³Jason Lo (n 1) [7], [119]–[122].

Seven years later, on 15 July 2026, the Court of Appeal told us what all of this was worth: RM300,000, a full retraction in print and online, and a judgment every editor in Malaysia would do well to read twice.⁴Jason Lo (n 1) [257]–[259].

The Issue

Two questions sat at the heart of these cross-appeals.

First, the one everyone can feel: when does reporting an accusation become making one?

Secondly, the one only lawyers will feel, though it matters more: may the Court of Appeal correct a mistake in its own earlier decision — and if so, how?

The Law, Stated Plainly

Begin with the principle, because everything else follows from it. The word “allegedly” is not a legal disinfectant. A publication is judged by the overall impression it leaves on the ordinary reasonable reader — headline, tone, structure, and all — not by the most cautious word an editor can point to afterwards.⁵Jason Lo (n 1) [100], [106], [113], [115]; Raub Australian Gold Mining Sdn Bhd v Hue Shieh Lee [2019] 3 MLJ 720 (FC).

A claimant must show three things: that the words refer to him, that they are capable of defaming him, and what they actually mean. A publisher, in turn, has three principal shields: justification (the sting is substantially true), qualified privilege in its traditional occasion-based form, and the Reynolds defence of responsible journalism on matters of public interest.⁶Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd [2001] 2 AC 127 (HL); Jameel (Mohammad) v Wall Street Journal Europe Sprl [2007] 1 AC 359 (HL); adopted in Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd v Tony Pua Kiam Wee [2015] 6 MLJ 187 (FC); Jason Lo (n 1) [162]–[168].

What Happened

Three publications were in issue. A 16 May 2019 online article reported the plaintiff’s arrest over alleged death threats and trespass. The 25 May article went considerably further: the front page set “Molester” directly against “CEO”, described the earlier arrest as merely the “tip of the iceberg”, and reported that police were probing sex abuse complaints against the former telco head. A Facebook post by one of the journalists then republished it all with commentary.⁷Jason Lo (n 1) [7], [108], [112].

The High Court found the publications defamatory, rejected the defences, and awarded RM200,000 — but declined aggravated damages, exemplary damages, an apology, or a retraction. Both sides appealed. Both sides, in the end, learned something.⁸Jason Lo (n 1) [9], [3]–[4].

The Unnamed Man Was Named

The newspaper argued that it never identified the plaintiff. The Court applied the classical test: would reasonable readers acquainted with him understand the words to refer to him?⁹Knupffer v London Express Newspaper Ltd [1944] AC 116 (HL); Jason Lo (n 1) [93]–[94]. One descriptor — “ex-telco CEO” — may be general. Add “local musician”. Add “father of three”. Add a link back to the earlier arrest story. Read together, the descriptors formed a fingerprint. Identification is cumulative; the law does not permit a publisher to dismember its own portrait and plead that each severed limb resembles nobody.¹⁰Jason Lo (n 1) [95]–[99].

The Grammar of Caution

On meaning, the Court used the three Chase levels: guilt, reasonable grounds to suspect, or mere grounds for investigation.¹¹Chase v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 1172; Jason Lo (n 1) [101]–[102]. The newspaper said the 25 May article sat at the bottom rung. The Court disagreed. A front page contrasting a man’s public respectability with private molestation, calling an arrest the “tip of the iceberg”, and assembling police reports and counselling material into apparent corroboration, conveys — at the least — compelling grounds to believe the allegation.¹²Jason Lo (n 1) [110]–[114].

The scattered “allegedly”s changed nothing. They were, in the Court’s analysis, an accusation dressed in the grammar of caution. And the one fact that genuinely qualified the story — the police classification of No Further Action — lay buried beneath the sensation, mentioned somewhere, prominent nowhere.¹³Jason Lo (n 1) [115]–[117], [182].

Fifteen Reports, Zero Proof

Justification is a defence of truth, not of suspicion. The newspaper proved that complaints were made, that fifteen police reports were lodged, that an investigation occurred. All true. All beside the point. A police report is evidence that a complaint was made; it is not evidence that the complaint is true. Fifteen accusations do not add up to one proof.¹⁴Jason Lo (n 1) [127], [148]–[149].

Section 8 of the Defamation Act 1957 forgives a defendant who fails to prove minor details. It does not forgive one who fails to prove the gravamen of the libel.¹⁵Defamation Act 1957, s 8; Abdul Rahman Talib v Seenivasagam & Anor [1965] 1 MLJ 42 (FC); Jason Lo (n 1) [155]–[158].

The Care an Accusation Demands

The Reynolds defence protects responsible journalism even where the allegation turns out to be untrue. But the gravity of an allegation dictates the intensity of verification it demands. An accusation that a father molested his own children sits near the very top of any imaginable scale. The duty to verify, to give the NFA outcome fair prominence, and to present the man’s side of the story rises with it.¹⁶Jason Lo (n 1) [171]–[172], [175]–[177], [183]–[186]. Here, the plaintiff’s side was not fairly presented, and the time given to him to respond was unreasonable. Malice, the Court noted, is not even the inquiry: either the publisher acted responsibly, or the defence never arises at all.¹⁷Jason Lo (n 1) [190], [167], [206]–[208], following Jameel (n 3).

What It Cost

The Court raised the award to a global RM300,000 — one compensatory and vindicatory sum, no separate heads — and ordered a full retraction in The Star and The Star Online.¹⁸Lim Guan Eng v Ruslan bin Kassim [2021] 2 MLJ 514 (FC); Jason Lo (n 1) [228]–[229], [249]–[250], [259]. It declined to order an apology. A retraction corrects the record; an apology expresses contrition; and contrition, unlike correction, cannot be extracted from an unwilling defendant. The law can make a newspaper take its words back. It cannot make it mean the taking back.¹⁹Credit Guarantee Corp Malaysia Bhd v SSN Medical Products Sdn Bhd [2017] 2 MLJ 629 (CA); Jason Lo (n 1) [251]–[253].

The Quieter Revolution

Now the lawyers’ question — and, I suggest, the more important one.

Lurking in these appeals was a trap of the Court’s own earlier making. In Rekha Munisamy, a differently constituted Court of Appeal had been understood as holding that a failure to translate English defamatory words into Bahasa Malaysia in the pleading was fatal — a nullity, full stop.²⁰Rekha d/o Munisamy v Ortus Expert White Sdn Bhd & Anor [2021] 5 MLJ 836 (CA); Jason Lo (n 1) [15], [70]. High Courts had begun striking out claims on that footing, even after full trials in which nobody was misled and nobody was prejudiced.²¹Jason Lo (n 1) [15], citing Mabel Sheela a/p Victor Muttiah v Clare Louise Brown [2025] 9 MLJ 902 (HC).

Here, the Court raised the point itself, of its own motion. And here the story pauses for a moment of old-fashioned grace. Counsel for the newspaper, having taken the point in writing, informed the Court that he did not wish to win on the technicality alone, without the merits being heard. The Court commended him. So do I. A lawyer who declines a cheap victory is rarer than a headline that resists one.²²Jason Lo (n 1) [14], [19]–[21].

One might object: is it proper for one panel of the Court of Appeal to depart from another? Stare decisis exists precisely so that the law does not change with the composition of the bench. The objection has force. But the common law has long kept an answer in its pocket: a court may depart from its own earlier decision where that decision was reached per incuriam — in ignorance or forgetfulness of binding authority or statute.²³Young v Bristol Aeroplane Co Ltd [1944] KB 718 (CA); adopted in Dalip Bhagwan Singh v PP [1998] 1 MLJ 1 (FC); Jason Lo (n 1) [78]–[79].

And that, on examination, was the position. The broader Rekha proposition had been reached without the benefit of Hassan v Wan Ishak, without Karpal Singh, and without the binding Federal Court decision in Anwar Ibrahim — three authorities that all point the same way: substance over technicality, prejudice over pedantry.²⁴Hassan & Anor v Wan Ishak & Ors [1961] 1 MLJ 45; Karpal Singh a/l Ram Singh v DP Vijandran [2001] 4 MLJ 161 (CA); Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim v Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad [2011] 1 MLJ 145 (FC); Jason Lo (n 1) [80]–[81]. The proviso to section 8 of the National Language Acts itself preserves a judicial discretion, in the interests of justice, to permit English in part.²⁵National Language Acts 1963/67, s 8, proviso; Federal Constitution, art 152; Jason Lo (n 1) [30]–[31], [85].

The better view is the one the Court reached. Where the very words alleged to be defamatory were published in English, pleaded verbatim, understood by everyone, and contested through a full trial without objection or prejudice, the absence of a translation does not vaporise the claim.²⁶Jason Lo (n 1) [87]–[89]. The national language requirement stands; proper practice still calls for a Bahasa Malaysia translation. What has gone is the trapdoor. The purpose of the rule is dignity for the national language — not immunity for the defamer.

Practical Note

For editors and journalists: three things. Verify in proportion to gravity — the graver the charge, the harder the checking. Give the qualifying fact its fair prominence — an NFA buried under a “tip of the iceberg” narrative counts against you, not for you. And give the person accused a real opportunity to answer, not a token line and an unreasonable deadline.²⁷Jason Lo (n 1) [177], [182], [189]–[190].

For claimants and their counsel: plead the actual words, verbatim, in their original language — and supply a Bahasa Malaysia translation as a matter of course. The nullity trap is gone; the requirement is not.²⁸Jason Lo (n 1) [88].

For the rest of us, the quietest lesson is the largest. A court willing to say of its own recent decision, in effect, “we went further than the authorities allowed”, is not a court in disarray. It is a court doing what four centuries of the common law have asked of it. Correction from within is how case law stays alive. It deserves rather more admiration than it will probably receive.

∞§∞

This article is written for a general readership and does not constitute technical or legal advice. Readers with legal questions are encouraged to seek independent legal advice.

The author thanks KN Geetha, TP Vaani, JN Lheela, and Lydia Jaynthi at GK Legal. Gratitude to John Cardamone of Unsplash for image.

Claude, Anthropic’s AI, smoothed the drafting; Perplexity Pro checked the facts. The argument, the views, and the errors remain the author’s.

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