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 criterias 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 prosecutions 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.