Shaik Adam & Co

On the court record

Shaik Adam & Co is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters before the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) combine criminal defence with civil-appeal and constitutional work. On the criminal side the firm has appeared in appeals against conviction and sentence where accused persons had been charged, separately and jointly, with several offences of possession, engaging the way in which multiple charges are framed and tried. Its criminal-appellate work reflects close attention to the structure of charges and the sufficiency of the evidence supporting each.

The firm's civil-appeal practice is illustrated by appeals from the Sessions Court engaging the reception of fresh evidence under Order 55 Rule 7 and Order 38 Rule 12 of the Rules of Court 2012, and the exceptional and restrictive nature of the appellate court's power to admit additional evidence, together with the principle of the finality of litigation. In a further civil appeal the court considered the judicial appreciation of evidence, the plainly-wrong test for appellate interference, and whether a failure to name a party affected the cause of action.

A distinctive constitutional matter concerns citizenship: the firm appeared in an application for a declaration of citizenship by operation of law under Article 14(1)(b) of the Federal Constitution and the Second Schedule, for a plaintiff born in Malaysia to Indonesian parents who were neither citizens nor permanent residents, turning on whether the plaintiff was not born a citizen of any other country and so entitled to Malaysian citizenship. In the civil appeals the firm engaged the exceptional and restrictive nature of the appellate power to admit fresh evidence, arguing that the principle of finality in litigation constrains when a party may reopen the record after trial. The reported profile is that of a litigation practice that moves between criminal defence, the appellate reception of fresh evidence and review of trial findings, and constitutional questions of citizenship and statelessness, serving clients across the criminal and civil courts.