Pendakwa Raya v OOI EE KUANG

Case Significance

Illustrates sentencing for possession of methamphetamine under sections 12(2) and 39A(2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 following a reduction from a trafficking charge: the court adopted the comparable 10-year custodial tendency while omitting the usual caning on account of the offender's advanced age.

This High Court decision at Kangar concerns sentencing on a plea of guilty to a reduced drug-possession charge, and the appropriateness of the term imposed on an elderly offender. The accused had originally been charged under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, but the prosecution offered an alternative charge under section 12(2) of the Act, punishable under section 39A(2), of possessing 54.48 grams of methamphetamine at a house in Arau, Perlis. On a raid, officers had found the accused seated in the kitchen area and, on searching a third room, recovered a container holding several packets of suspected drugs, later confirmed by chemical analysis to be methamphetamine of that weight; the house belonged to the accused's sibling, who was living in Thailand. The alternative charge was read to the accused, who confirmed that he understood it and the nature and consequences of his plea, pleaded guilty, and was convicted. The court sentenced him to 10 years' imprisonment from the date of arrest, and declined to impose caning because the accused was 68 years old. In arriving at the term, the court reviewed comparable authorities involving similar drugs of similar weight, in which the sentencing tendency was 10 years' imprisonment with 10 strokes of the cane for offences under sections 12(2) and 39A(2) of the Act, and concluded that a 10-year term was appropriate and just in the accused's circumstances. For completeness, the court noted that the accused had also been tried together on two further possession charges under sections 12(2) and 39A(1), for which he had pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 2 years' imprisonment each, but that no appeal had been filed on those. Dissatisfied with the conviction and sentence on the section 39A(2) charge, the accused appealed. The court recorded that the two further possession charges tried together, to which the accused had also pleaded guilty, had each attracted two years' imprisonment and were not appealed, so its reasons addressed only the section 39A(2) charge before it on appeal.