Another group of 307 pig farmers are waiting for the Court of Appeal to hear their final appeal to be allowed to sue the government for claims arising from the Nipah outbreak a decade ago.

In another case, the Court of Appeal had allowed another group of 184 pig farmers to sue the government. But it appealed to the Federal Court on Tuesday (15 July) that the farmers’ suit is defective and frivolous and should be thrown out. Judgment is reserved.

Both groups of farmers are from Bukit Pelanduk, the country’s pig farming hub before the virus outbreak killed off the industry. Both filed claims against the government six years ago for alleged negligence in containing the epidemic in 1998.

The group of 184 farmers filed their suit at the Kuala Lumpur High Court which has gone up all the way to the Federal Court to decide whether the government is protected by immunity from such suits, among other things. The second group of 307 farmers filed theirs at the Seremban High Court in March 2002. The government succeeded in striking out their suit two years later. But the farmers appealed to the Court of Appeal. They are waiting for a hearing date for the court to decide whether they have a case against the government.

In the Seremban Hihg Court suit, the 307 farmers are suing the Negeri Sembilan Director of Veterinary, State Government, Director General of Veterinary Services, Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Health and the Federal Government.

The farmers’ grounds for claims are that the government had breached their statutory duties, violate their constitution rights, negligent, breach their legitimate expectation, trespass and breach natural justice.

The pig farmers are asking the court to make a declaration to allow them to resume pig farming in the area and also financial compensation to be quantified by the court adequate to compensate their loss of over 300,000 pigs.

The viral encephalitis outbreak which affected workers in the porcine industry, was caused by a then unknown virus later identified and tagged as Nipah. The outbreak occurred between September 1998 and May 1999. Of the 265 infected, 105 died. The government ordered over one million pigs to be culled to contain the outbreak. It took some eight months to bring the epidemic under control.

The outbreak was thought to have started around Ipoh in September 1998 but subsequently spread to Bukit Pelanduk in Negri Sembilan, the hub if the industry.

The Negri Sembilan Government has banned pig farming in the state since March 1999, and degazetted land for pig farming as well as revoking all licences for pig farming. The authorities had also culled pigs and cause destruction to their structures of various pig farms.

The Government, like in the Kuala Lumpur High Court case, has also asked the court to strike out the pig farmers’ case summarily without having to go to trial also on grounds that it is defective and frivolous .The High Court agreed and struck off the farmers’ suit in March last year, 5 years after the case was filed.

The farmers promptly appealed to the Court of Appeal. Hearing date has not been fixed. (By BOB TEOH & TAN LEE CHIN/ MySinchew) (www.mysinchew.com)