BADAN PENGURUSAN BERSAMA GURNEY PARAGON RESIDENTIAL v 1. ) HUNZA PROPERTIES (GURNEY) SDN BHD 2. ) HUNZA PROPERTIES (PENANG) SDN BHD 3. ) BEACHFRONT SERVICES SDN BHD

Case Significance

Illustrates the narrow scope for appellate interference with a discretionary refusal of a stay of execution pending appeal, and the principle that such a discretion will not be disturbed absent an error of principle or a conclusion no reasonable court could have reached.

This Court of Appeal decision, in which S. Nantha Balan JCA delivered the grounds, concerns an appeal against the refusal of a stay of execution. The appellant is a joint management body responsible for a residential development; the respondents are a group of property and services companies. In the High Court at Penang the joint management body, as plaintiff, had applied to stay a judgment dated 26 June 2024 pending the disposal of its own appeal against that judgment, and the High Court had dismissed the stay application with costs. The joint management body then appealed to the Court of Appeal against that refusal.

The governing principles constrain appellate intervention with a discretionary decision such as the grant or refusal of a stay. The Court of Appeal reminded itself that, where the lower court has exercised a discretion, an appellate court is not justified in setting aside or varying the order simply because it might have reached a different conclusion on the same material; it may interfere only where the court below applied a wrong principle, took into account legally irrelevant matters, excluded matters it ought to have considered, or reached a conclusion that no court properly instructing itself in the law could have arrived at.

Applying that standard, the Court of Appeal agreed with the Judicial Commissioner (now a Judge) who had refused the stay, finding no error of principle and no misdirection in the exercise of the discretion below, and holding the appeal to be clearly devoid of merit. It reiterated that a stay of execution pending appeal is not granted as a matter of course and that the burden lies on the applicant to justify displacing the ordinary rule that a successful party is entitled to the fruits of its judgment. It dismissed the appeal, with costs of RM10,000 subject to allocatur. The judgment is a useful illustration of the narrow scope for appellate interference with a discretionary refusal of a stay of execution pending appeal, and of the principle that such a discretion will not be disturbed absent an error of principle or a conclusion no reasonable court could have reached.