Professor Dato' Dr. Mohd Fauzi Bin Ramlan v 1. ) Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) 2. ) JAWATANKUASA RAYUAN TATATERTIB, UNIVERSITI PUTRA MALAYSIA 3. ) MENTERI PENDIDIKAN MALAYSIA

Case Significance

A clear statement that an internal disciplinary appeal cannot cure a denial of natural justice at the hearing stage: where a party is not given a real opportunity to cross-examine or respond and has not validly waived that right, the resulting decision is vitiated by procedural impropriety.

This Court of Appeal decision concerns judicial review of university disciplinary proceedings and the requirements of natural justice at the appellate stage of such proceedings. The appellant, a former Vice-Chancellor of a public university, had been subjected to disciplinary proceedings under the Statutory Bodies (Discipline and Surcharge) Act 2000. He was found guilty of insubordination by the university's Disciplinary Committee and penalised by a reduction in rank, and his appeal to the Disciplinary Appeal Committee was dismissed. His application for judicial review of the Appeal Committee's decision had been dismissed by the High Court, and this appeal challenged that dismissal. The central issues were whether the disciplinary process — and in particular the proceedings before the Disciplinary Appeal Committee — complied with the rules of natural justice, whether the Appeal Committee's failure to allow the appellant to be present during the examination of witnesses amounted to a procedural impropriety, and whether defects at the earlier investigative and committee stages could be 'cured' by the appellate process. The Court of Appeal held that the appellant had been denied a fair hearing: he had not been given a proper opportunity to cross-examine or respond, there had been no valid waiver of that right, and the Appeal Committee's process could not cure the earlier procedural flaws. It rejected the contention that a rehearing on appeal automatically remedies defects at the stages below, holding that any such cure depends on the appellate body itself observing natural justice, which had not occurred here. Allowing the appeal, the court set aside the Appeal Committee's decision, declared the reduction in rank to be without basis, and ordered the appellant's reinstatement to his former grade with effect from the date of the original decision, without loss of benefit and with interest, the university to make the necessary payment. It ordered the university to pay costs of RM25,000. The judgment is a clear statement that an internal appeal cannot cure a denial of natural justice at the hearing stage.