Pendakwa Raya v AMIR BIN ARIFFIN

Case Significance

Illustrates the operation of the section 84 insanity defence — which the defence must prove on the balance of probabilities — and the 'exceptional case' threshold under the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023, under which the murder of children warranted the death penalty despite the new sentencing discretion.

This decision of the High Court (Criminal Division) at Alor Setar records the trial of an accused on two charges of murder under seksyen 302 Kanun Keseksaan (section 302 of the Penal Code), the victims being two young children who were killed on the same night, each with a deep slash to the neck. At the close of the prosecution case the court found a prima facie case established on both charges and called on the accused to enter his defence. The defence advanced was insanity under section 84 of the Penal Code — that by reason of unsoundness of mind the accused was incapable of knowing the nature of his act or that it was wrong. In proving the intention to kill, the prosecution relied on subsection 300(c) of the Penal Code, under which an act done with the intention of causing a bodily injury sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death constitutes murder.

At the close of the defence, the court held that the accused had failed to establish the defence of insanity on the balance of probabilities, the burden resting on the defence to prove it, and that the prosecution had proved both charges beyond reasonable doubt. It convicted the accused on both counts of murder. On sentence, the court considered the discretion introduced by the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023, under which a court may, in an appropriate case, impose imprisonment and whipping in place of death. Guided by the Federal Court's treatment in Public Prosecutor v Muhammad Khairuanuar bin Baharuddin, where the murder of a very young child was held to be an exceptional case in which the discretion to impose imprisonment should not be exercised, the court concluded that the murder of two children here was likewise an exceptional case warranting the death penalty. It accordingly imposed a sentence of death on each charge. The judgment illustrates the operation of the section 84 insanity defence and the exceptional-case threshold under the reformed sentencing regime.