Ai Cha Ran & Co

On the court record

Ai Cha Ran & Co appears in the reported judgments as a criminal-defence practice, working mainly in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) with a matter in the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and appearing overwhelmingly as counsel for the accused. Its corpus is centred on serious criminal charges. Drug prosecutions under the Akta Dadah Berbahaya 1952 (Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, Act 234) are the most frequent, including trafficking in methamphetamine under seksyen 39B(1)(a) — with the recurring question at the close of the prosecution case whether the Pendakwa Raya (the Public Prosecutor) proved a prima facie case — and the reduced charges under section 12(2) read with section 39A(2), to which an accused may plead guilty, so that the firm's work turns to mitigation and the appropriate sentence. The firm also defends homicide charges, including murder under seksyen 302 Kanun Keseksaan (section 302 of the Penal Code), where in one matter the cause of death could not be conclusively established by the pathologist, and an appeal against conviction and sentence for murder. Its work extends to a prosecution brought by the customs authority. Acting overwhelmingly on the defence side, both at trial and on appeal, the firm occupies the role of a criminal-defence practice for the gravest charges — capital drug and homicide matters — in which the defence turns on the sufficiency of the prosecution's proof of the elements, the reliability of the forensic evidence, and, where a plea is entered, the mitigation of sentence. Its corpus is in effect a record of the defence side of the most serious criminal prosecutions, and the recurring question of whether a prima facie case was made out runs through much of its work. The murder matter in which the cause of death could not be conclusively established is a good illustration, since a gap in the forensic proof of how the deceased died can be fatal to a prosecution that must establish every element of the charge beyond reasonable doubt.