Collin's Law Chambers

On the court record

Collin's Law Chambers is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters are argued at the highest levels, in the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), and combine constitutional and criminal-justice advocacy with criminal appellate work. A significant group of matters invokes the review jurisdiction of the Federal Court under Rule 137 of the Rules of the Federal Court 1995 and the court's inherent power to ensure that all sentences are in accordance with law and to avoid a miscarriage of justice in exceptional circumstances. In those matters the firm appeared as intervener, raising constitutional questions in the light of fresh evidence concerning the death of a prisoner following whipping, engaging the lawfulness of a sentence already passed.

The firm's wider criminal practice includes an appeal concerning the interpretation of section 117 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which governs remand applications, and specifically whether only the investigating officer in charge must personally appear before the Magistrate, or whether another officer may do so when the investigating officer is unavailable. It has also argued a sentencing appeal under section 26A of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007, weighing the public interest and the seriousness of the offence against mitigating factors and whether a custodial sentence was manifestly excessive. In the migrant-smuggling appeal the firm weighed the seriousness of the offence and the public interest against the appellants' mitigation, contending that a term of imprisonment already imposed could not be characterised as manifestly excessive, while in the Rule 137 review it pressed the exceptional-circumstances threshold that must be crossed before the apex court will reopen a concluded sentence. The reported profile is that of a specialist criminal and constitutional-litigation practice, engaged with the apex court's review powers, the constitutional limits on punishment and the procedural safeguards, such as remand and sentencing, that govern the treatment of accused and convicted persons within the criminal-justice system.