1. ) Cheah Soo Chuan 2. ) Low Peck Yin v 1. ) Chiu Boon Hee 2. ) Tribunal Pengurusan Harta

Case Significance

Illustrates the limited grounds on which a decision of the Strata Management Tribunal may be quashed by judicial review under Order 53 of the Rules of Court 2012 — essentially a denial of a fair hearing or a breach of the procedure under the Strata Management Act 2013 — rather than mere disagreement with the tribunal's findings.

This High Court decision at Johor Bahru concerns judicial review of an award made by the Strata Management Tribunal in a water-leakage dispute between the owners of stacked units in a stratified development. The occupant of the lower unit had complained of water leaking from the unit above; inspections by the joint management body confirmed that the owners of the upper unit were responsible; repairs were carried out but the damage persisted. The complainant claimed a sum before the tribunal, which, under the Strata Management Act 2013, awarded him RM8,000. The owners of the upper unit, dissatisfied with that award, applied under Order 53 of the Rules of Court 2012 to quash it. The court's task was not to reassess the merits of the leakage claim but to determine whether the tribunal's decision was amenable to being set aside on public-law grounds, in particular whether the applicants had been denied a fair hearing or whether the tribunal had breached the procedure laid down in the Strata Management Act and its regulations. Reviewing the tribunal's record, the court found that the applicants had been present and had been given a reasonable opportunity to present their case and to answer the case against them — the essence of the right to be heard. It could identify nothing in the conduct of the tribunal that amounted to a breach of procedure under the Act or the regulations such as would justify quashing the award. Emphasising that judicial review is directed at the legality and fairness of the decision-making process rather than at the correctness of the tribunal's findings, the court concluded that there was no basis for intervention. It dismissed the application for judicial review with costs of RM3,000 to the successful respondent. The judgment illustrates the limited grounds on which the decisions of the Strata Management Tribunal may be challenged by judicial review.