Sabah News July 06, 2005 15:16 PM Casinos' Counsel Waiting For Instructions To Appeal On Ex-CM's Debt KOTA KINABALU, July 6 (Bernama) -- The local counsel for Ritz Hotel Casino Ltd and R.H.C Ltd from the United Kingdom is waiting for further instructions from his clients whether to file an appeal against the Kota Kinabalu High Court's judgement on their bid to recover RM7.14 million in gambling debt owed to them by former Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Osu Sukam. "I don't know yet. I just faxed everything (copy of the judgement) to London," said the firms' counsel Colin Lau. He said this to Bernama when asked whether he would file the notice of appeal against the High Court's decision to dismiss the application by the two foreign casinos to register in the High Court in Sabah and Sarawak a judgement obtained in the English High Court to recover the gambling debt owed by Osu. However, Lau said his clients had one month to file a notice of appeal against the judgement in the Kota Kinabalu High Court. Tuesday, Kota Kinabalu High Court Judge Datuk Ian Chin dismissed the application by the two foreign casinos to register in the High Court in Sabah and Sarawak the judgement obtained in the English High Court pursuant to the Reciprical Enforcement of Judgement Act, 1958. In his judgement, Chin said the dismissal of the bid to register the English High Court's judgement was because gambling was against the country's public policy, which is belief in God and good social behavior embedded in the Rukunegara. "In other words, it is against the Rukun Negara. Anything that seeks to go against the Rukun Negara must surely be regarded as against public policy," he said. As for the argument that gambling debt incurred in Malaysia would suffer the same fate in another country if he did not allow the registration of the foreign judgement, Chin said: "My short answer would be that the world would be so much better for it and makes for a better public policy." "The world would be a much nicer place if no country would allow the recovery of a judgement for a gambling debt which was the result, invariably, of the debtor being enticed to gamble on credit and beyond his means," he said. In fact in his judgement, Chin suggested that a law be enacted to allow a gambler to sue a casino for having enticed him to gamble beyond his means "if that is not already a common law." -- BERNAMA