1. ) ONG PHAIK KOOI 2. ) JOANN WEN LAW v 1. ) TRIBUNAL PERUMAHAN DAN PENGURUSAN STRATA 2. ) AMBER COURT MANAGEMENT CORPORATION

Case Significance

Illustrates the division of function between a specialist tribunal, which finds the facts on the evidence before it under the Strata Management Act 2013, and the supervisory court on judicial review, which intervenes only for illegality or irrationality and does not re-determine disputed facts or lightly find that concluded issues have been re-decided.

This High Court decision at Kuala Lumpur, heard together with a companion application, concerns judicial review of awards of the Strata Management Tribunal in favour of a management corporation. The applicants, parcel owners, sought certiorari to quash tribunal awards of May 2023 that had allowed the management corporation's claims for arrears of maintenance charges and various other sums. In addition to arguing that the awards were ultra vires the Strata Management Act 2013, the applicants contended that the tribunal had wrongly resolved disputes of fact, including whether the maintenance charges had been properly fixed by reference to floor area and tabled at the annual general meeting, and that it had decided issues that had already been determined in a suit earlier brought before the High Court. The court held that the resolution of disputed facts, on the evidence and documents placed before it, is precisely the function the Strata Management Act 2013 confers on the tribunal, and that on judicial review the court does not sit to re-determine those factual disputes but only to examine the award for illegality and irrationality. It found that the tribunal had considered the relevant statutory provisions and the supporting documents and had given reasons that were neither illegal nor irrational, and it was not persuaded that the tribunal had impermissibly re-decided matters concluded in the earlier High Court proceedings. Because the applicants had failed to establish any ground warranting the court's intervention, the court dismissed the judicial review application with costs of RM5,000. The court's approach shows that an applicant cannot recast disputed questions of fact as public-law errors in order to obtain a re-hearing under the guise of judicial review, and that a complaint of re-litigation must be made out on the record before it can displace a tribunal's award. The judgment illustrates the division of function between a specialist tribunal, which finds the facts, and the supervisory court, which reviews only for illegality and irrationality.