Hisyam Teh

On the court record

Hisyam Teh is a Malaysian criminal-appellate practice whose reported matters are argued before the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan), acting for appellants and accused persons in prosecutions brought by the Public Prosecutor (Pendakwa Raya). Dangerous-drugs work features prominently. The firm has argued a trafficking appeal under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, contending that the invocation of the presumption of possession under section 37(d) had prejudiced the appellant where there was sufficient evidence for a finding of direct possession, and a further methamphetamine appeal in which a trafficking charge had been substituted and the High Court had imposed life imprisonment and whipping, engaging the principles of sentencing and the operation of the presumptions and adverse-inference provisions of the Evidence Act 1950.

At the apex level the firm has appeared in a homicide appeal on the proof of the three elements under section 300(c) of the Penal Code, and in particular the meaning of the phrase that the injury was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death (mencukupi pada lazimnya untuk menyebabkan kematian). It has also argued a rape appeal under section 376(1) of the Penal Code that raised a constitutional challenge to the procedures under section 265A(2) and (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, contending that those provisions were unconstitutional and had denied the appellant the right to be heard. Across its drug appeals the firm has repeatedly tested the boundary between a finding of direct possession and reliance on the statutory presumptions, arguing that a substituted charge and the resulting term of life imprisonment and whipping called for appellate reconsideration of both conviction and sentence. The reported profile is that of a specialist criminal-appeal practice engaged with the most consequential questions of Malaysian criminal law, the drug-trafficking presumptions, the elements of murder and the constitutional limits on criminal procedure, before the two highest courts in the country.