ABU BAKAR BIN JA'AFAR v Pendakwa Raya

Case Significance

Confirms that the High Court's supervisory and revisionary power under sections 31 and 35 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 presupposes an existing subordinate-court proceeding and cannot be used to initiate an inquest into a death that has not been commenced.

This High Court decision concerns whether the Court may exercise its supervisory and revisionary powers to order that an inquest be held into a death. The applicant, the father of a young man who had died, applied by notice of motion for the Court to order an inquest and further investigation into the cause of his son's death, invoking the Court's inherent jurisdiction under section 35 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 together with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code governing inquiries into deaths. The central question was whether the Court had jurisdiction to grant the application. The Court examined its supervisory and revisionary powers under sections 31 and 35 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 and the inquest provisions in Chapters XXXI and XXXII of the Criminal Procedure Code, and the role of the Public Prosecutor under Article 145(3) of the Federal Constitution and the Criminal Procedure Code. It held that the phrase permitting intervention at any stage in any matter or proceeding in a subordinate court refers to a proceeding that has already begun in a subordinate court, and that the revisionary power does not extend to a matter or proceeding that has not yet commenced. Because no relevant proceeding was on foot in a subordinate court, the application failed to trigger the Court's supervisory and revisionary jurisdiction, and the Court dismissed it. The judgment is significant for confirming that the High Court's revisionary power under section 35 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 presupposes an existing subordinate-court proceeding and cannot be used to initiate an inquest that has not been commenced. The decision is an important clarification that the High Court's revisionary jurisdiction is supervisory of proceedings already before the subordinate courts and is not a freestanding power to commence an investigation, so that a grieving family seeking an inquest must invoke the specific statutory machinery for that purpose rather than the court's general revisionary power.