Jabatan Peguam Negara

On the court record

Marks the reported decisions in which the State's prosecuting and defending arm tests the line between executive power and constitutionally protected liberty and citizenship rights.

Jabatan Peguam Negara (the Attorney General's Chambers) is the federal government's own legal service, and in the reported Malaysian judgments it appears in a dual public-law character: as the prosecuting authority acting for the Pendakwa Raya (the Public Prosecutor) in criminal matters, and as counsel defending the Government of Malaysia and its ministries in constitutional and administrative challenges. Its criminal workload in the corpus is dominated by Prosedur Jenayah (criminal procedure) and appellate work — rayuan jenayah (criminal appeals) against conviction and sentence, prosecutions for kesalahan membunuh under seksyen 302 Kanun Keseksaan (the offence of murder under section 302 of the Penal Code), and trafficking charges under seksyen 39B(1)(a) Akta Dadah Berbahaya 1952 (section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952). It has prosecuted menculik dan permintaan wang tebusan (kidnapping and demand for ransom) under the Akta Culik 1961 (Kidnapping Act 1961) and security-related offences of organised crime under section 130V of the Penal Code within the SOSMA framework, and it has resisted challenges at the close of the prosecution case where the accused was ordered dilepas dan dibebaskan (discharged and acquitted) for want of a prima facie case. On the civil and constitutional side the office is most often a respondent: it defends the executive in semakan kehakiman (judicial review) of public-service disciplinary dismissals, where the recurring questions are whether a Disciplinary Authority owed a duty to give reasons and whether Article 5(1) and Article 135(2) of the Federal Constitution were engaged; it appears in citizenship-by-operation-of-law appeals argued under Article 14(1)(b) and the Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution; and it has met a judicial-review challenge to prosecutorial discretion engaging Article 145(3) of the Federal Constitution and section 254 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Its matters span the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), with a smaller number reaching the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan). Because it acts for the State, its presence marks the reported decisions that test the boundary between executive power and the individual liberties and citizenship rights protected by the Constitution.