Chambers of Richard Ho & Yap

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the treatment of forensic evidence and the section 37(d) presumption in a drug prosecution, and the priority of creditors and the tax liability of executors under the Probate and Administration Act 1959 and the Income Tax Act 1967.

Chambers of Richard Ho & Yap appears in the corpus as counsel in criminal and succession litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) in both English and Bahasa Malaysia.

On the criminal side the firm acted for appellants and the accused in dangerous-drugs prosecutions under seksyen 39B(1)(a) Akta Dadah Berbahaya 1952 (section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952). In one appeal, argued in Malay, the issues were whether the accused had custody and control of the seized drugs, whether he had knowledge of them, and whether he had trafficked them, the court observing that the absence of CCTV footage or fingerprint evidence had only limited corroborative value and that a bare denial amounting to an afterthought failed to rebut the presumption of knowledge under section 37(d) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.

On the succession side the firm appeared in a matter concerning the priority of creditors over a deceased's estate. Acting for the respondent, it was engaged where the court held that a disposition of property in a will is void against creditors if made without paying the testator's debts, that creditors have priority under section 67(1)(a) of the Probate and Administration Act 1959, and that under section 74 of the Income Tax Act 1967 executors are assessable for tax payable by the deceased and may be jointly and severally liable to a penalty if they distribute the estate without providing for tax, so that the Inland Revenue Board's entry of a Registrar's caveat was justified.

The accused persons are referred to here by their procedural role. The firm's record is a litigation practice engaging both serious criminal-drug work and the fiscal and creditor-priority questions that arise on the administration of a deceased's estate. The breadth is a reminder that a general chambers may pair capital criminal defence with the technical law of succession and revenue, and that in both fields the outcome frequently turns on a statutory presumption or priority, whether the presumption of trafficking that an accused must rebut or the statutory priority a creditor or the revenue enjoys over the assets of a deceased before any beneficiary may take.