RAUDHAH BINTI MAZMAN

A146450

JURISPRUDENCE

TUTORIAL WEEK 8

(1) When was the current apex court of the land, the Federal Court established?

The Federal Court is now the highest court in Malaysia. It was established under Article 121(2) of the Federal Constitution. Prior to 1985, the Privy Council was the final court of appeal for Malaysia. This was abolished and replaced with the Supreme Court, in January, 1, 1985. It remained as the highest court of appeal until the establishment of Court of Appeal. In 1994, amendment was made to the Federal Constitution, and the structure of courts in Malaysia was rearranged. The Court of Appeal was established and the Supreme Court was renamed the Federal Court.

(2) Does the Federal Court is bound by the practice and precedents of its predecessor, the Supreme Court?

Stare decisis is the legal principle of determining point in litigation according to precedents. A precedent is defined as judgement or decision of a court of law cited as an authority for the legal principle embodied in its decision. With the restructuring of courts in 1994, the Supreme Court was renamed as the Federal Court. The decisions of the Federal Court binds the decision of all the subordinate courts, but the Federal Court is not bound by its own decision. The predecessors of the Federal Court was the former Federal Court (1963-1985) and Supreme Court (1985-1994). The decision of the predecessors courts are binding and continue to be binding until overruled by the present Federal Court. In regards to civil matter, the Federal Court is not itself bound by the decision of the Supreme Court. This can be seen in the case of Malaysia National Insurance Sdn Bhd v Lim Tiok and Tan Chik bin Ibrahim v Safety Life and General Insurance Sdn Bhd. In the latter case, the issue was whether the Federal Court should follow the decision in Supreme Court or should Federal Court overruled it. The Federal Court overruled the decision of Supreme Court and laid down 2 criteria’s when should Federal Court depart from the decision of the Supreme Court : 1) the Federal Court think it is necessary to depart from the reasoning and decision and 2) the judges satisfied that it would be of relevance to the resolution of dispute in the case before them. Meanwhile in the criminal matters, the Federal Court hold itself bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court. In the case of Tan Boon Kean v Public Prosecutor, the Federal Court was faced with the issue of the standard of proof to be satisfied by the prosecution at the close of prosecution’s case in a non-jury trial under section 180 of Criminal Procedure Code. Following the case decided by the Supreme Court, Khoo Hi Chiang v Public Prosecutor, the Supreme Court decided that duty of the court at the close of the prosecution case was to undertake a maximum evaluation of the evidence to determine whether or not the prosecution had established the charge against the accused beyond reasonable doubt.

(3) Read page 496 of the case of MUNUSAMY v PUBLIC PROSECUTOR[1987] 1 MLJ 492 regarding expert opinion decided by the Supreme Court and compares it with paragraph [172] in the case of Dato' Seri Anwar bin Ibrahim v Public Prosecutor and another appeal [2015] 2 MLJ 293decided by the Federal Court. Has the Federal Court correctly applied the precedent set inMunusamy's case?

As has been said previously, the Federal Court hold itself bound in the decision of criminal matters decided by the Supreme Court. The Court in the latter case, applied the Munusamy precedent. In the case of Munusamy, expert evidence was given on the identification of cannabis. It has been said in this case, that the court is entitled to accept the opinion of the experts on its face value, unless it is inherently incredible or the defence calls evidence in rebuttal by another expert to contradict the opinion. So long as some credible opinion was given, there is no need for the chemist to explain step by step what he had done in the laboratory. In the case of Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the court cited the judgement from Munusamy case and said there was nothing inherently incredible expert evidence that was presented in the court. In my opinion the Federal Court have incorrectly applied the precedent in Munusamy. The Federal Court also did not follow the second part of the judgement that the expert does not have to elaborate in detail what he did to obtain the evidence. The court accepted that the experts need to explain in detail how the result was tabulated and obtained and by producing statistical data is not enough. Hence, it can be said that the Munusamy precent in the latter case, was applied partially.