M. Thanakumaran & Shan

On the court record

M. Thanakumaran & Shan is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) are concentrated in criminal defence and constitutional challenges to detention, acting for accused persons and applicants in prosecutions brought by the Public Prosecutor (Pendakwa Raya). Dangerous-drugs work is central. The firm has defended trafficking charges under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, drawing the distinction between the fact of possession and knowledge of the nature of the thing possessed, and testing whether the statutory presumption of trafficking under section 37(da) could be invoked. In a cannabis prosecution the defence challenged three successive raids as breaking the chain of custody of the exhibits, and in an appeal against a life sentence and whipping it pressed the appellate court's power to reassess the evidence notwithstanding the trial court's reasons.

A distinctive strand is the constitutional challenge to preventive detention. The firm has argued applications for a writ of habeas corpus under the Dangerous Drugs (Special Preventive Measures) Act 1985, invoking section 6(1) and the scope of judicial review under section 11C(1), and testing whether the court is confined to procedural compliance or may examine the factual merits and the Minister's subjective satisfaction, together with whether a detention order was consistent with Article 149 of the Federal Constitution and whether discrepancies in the translated record breached mandatory procedure.

Across the caseload the recurring battlegrounds are the proof of possession and knowledge in drug prosecutions, the operation of the statutory presumptions, and the limits of judicial oversight of executive detention. The reported profile is that of a criminal and liberty-focused practice, engaged both in contesting trafficking charges of the utmost gravity and in the constitutional review of preventive-detention orders, an area where the balance between the individual's liberty and the State's power of detention is continually tested before the courts.