Selvam Shanmugam & Partners

On the court record

The firm's record reflects a broad general-litigation practice in which serious criminal appeals sit alongside immigration, associational governance and costs work, all argued at High Court and appellate level.

Selvam Shanmugam & Partners appears in the corpus as counsel across a notably varied caseload spanning serious criminal appeals, immigration and asylum, civil society governance and taxation of costs, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan).

On the criminal side, the firm acted for appellants in appeals against conviction and sentence. One concerned a charge under seksyen 14(a) Akta Kesalahan-Kesalahan Seksual Terhadap Kanak-kanak 2017 (section 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017), where the argument turned on the credibility of a child witness, inconsistencies in the evidence, alleged misdirection by the trial judge and whether the sentence was manifestly excessive. Another was an appeal by an accused against conviction for trafficking in dangerous drugs under seksyen 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 (Akta Dadah Berbahaya 1952), where the court considered the admissibility and weight of an agent provocateur's evidence and whether the defence had cast a reasonable doubt. In each the firm appeared for the person facing the charge, described here by role.

In immigration work the firm acted for an applicant whose pass had been validly issued in an old passport, raising the effect of recognition by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and whether the applicant was a person of concern.

The firm also appeared in a civil dispute over the governance of a registered temple association, where a member and life trustee challenged the cancellation of his life membership and office by the management committee, a matter argued substantially in Malay and concerning the powers of the Registrar of Societies. A further matter concerned the taxation of a bill of costs under Order 59 of the Rules of Court 2012 and whether the amount claimed was reasonable. The breadth of these matters, from capital and child-protection criminal appeals to associational and refugee-related disputes, marks the firm as a general-litigation practice willing to appear at both first instance and on appeal, and comfortable across the criminal and civil divide.