Alif, Hafiz & Partners

On the court record

Alif, Hafiz & Partners is a Malaysian criminal-defence practice whose reported matters are argued before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), acting for accused persons and appellants in prosecutions brought by the Public Prosecutor (Pendakwa Raya). A substantial part of the caseload concerns dangerous drugs. The firm has defended trafficking and possession charges under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, read with section 34 of the Penal Code, where the contested questions were whether the prosecution had established possession, custody or control over the premises and whether knowledge of the drugs could be inferred. In several of these matters the defence pressed the point that drugs found in a common area accessible to multiple occupants, or inside an enclosed compartment, raised a reasonable doubt as to knowledge, and that gaps in the investigation undermined the prosecution case.

Beyond drugs, the firm has appeared in murder proceedings under section 302 of the Penal Code, including a cross-appeal by the Public Prosecutor against sentence, where the court examined whether a prima facie case had been established and whether the circumstantial evidence satisfied the required standard. It has also argued sentencing in a matter of armed robbery and gang robbery under sections 392, 395 and 397 of the Penal Code read with section 34, where multiple offences committed on different dates against different victims raised the one-transaction rule and the question whether consecutive sentences were justified. In a linked murder appeal the firm addressed whether the trial judge had erred in finding a prima facie case established on circumstantial evidence and whether that evidence satisfied the legal threshold, arguments that ran alongside a cross-appeal by the Public Prosecutor directed at the sentence. The reported profile is that of a focused criminal-litigation practice, engaged with the recurring battlegrounds of Malaysian criminal law: proof of possession and knowledge in drug cases, the establishment of a prima facie case in homicide, and the structuring of sentence where a defendant faces several charges.