DR. GEOFFREY ALAN WILLIAMS v 1. ) DR TIKFU GEE 2. ) MAJLIS PERUBATAN MALAYSIA

Case Significance

Confirms that where a statute such as the Medical Act 1971 declares the High Court's decision final, the matter is non-appealable under section 68(1)(d) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964, and the Court of Appeal, being a creature of statute, has no jurisdiction to enlarge its powers to hear such an appeal.

This Court of Appeal decision concerns the competency of an appeal in a medical-misconduct matter and, in particular, whether the Court of Appeal had jurisdiction to entertain it. The appellant, a medical practitioner, had lodged a complaint of misconduct against another doctor, which the Malaysian Medical Council dismissed. He commenced proceedings in the High Court, in the nature of judicial review, to quash the Council's dismissal of his complaint, raising questions about the right of appeal under sections 30 and 31(1) of the Medical Act 1971, the scope of an 'aggrieved person', and the effect of the repeal of section 31(2) of the Medical Act 1971 — including whether that repeal had retrospective effect, having regard to section 42(5) of the Medical (Amendment) Act 2012 and section 30(1)(a) and (d) of the Interpretation Act 1948. The threshold difficulty, however, concerned the competency of the appeal to the Court of Appeal itself. Section 31(2) of the Medical Act 1971 provides that the decision of the High Court upon an appeal from the Council is final, and by section 68(1)(d) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 such a matter falls within the class of non-appealable decisions. The Court, being a creature of statute, held that it has no power to enlarge its own jurisdiction: because the decision of the High Court under section 31(2) is expressly declared final, and the Medical Act is a federal law within the meaning of the Constitution, the Court of Appeal has no jurisdiction to hear an appeal from it. An appeal brought in those circumstances is incompetent. The Court accordingly held that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the appeal, and the appeal failed on that ground. The decision is a reminder that a right of appeal is entirely a creature of statute, and that where Parliament has provided that a particular decision is to be final, no residual or inherent appellate jurisdiction exists to review it; a party dissatisfied with such a final decision must look to the avenues the statute itself allows, if any, rather than to a further tier of appeal.