Tan Pang Tsen & Co

On the court record

A Sabah-focused appellate practice engaging the Sabah Land Ordinance, communal title and native land rights alongside the general law of contempt and the enforcement of injunctions.

Tan Pang Tsen & Co is recorded in the corpus in appellate litigation with a distinct East Malaysian character, appearing in Sabah-based matters before the Court of Appeal. A linked pair of appeals arose from a contempt-of-court application concerning an injunction over an access road: the firm appeared for the respondent in one appeal and for the appellant in the associated appeal, so its record captures both sides of the same controversy. The central question was whether the parties had wilfully and deliberately disobeyed or disregarded the terms of the court's injunction; the court observed that intention or mens rea is not an essential ingredient for a finding of contempt in general, that whether a contemnor intended to commit contempt is to be determined by reference to all the facts and circumstances, and that on the facts the conduct fell far short of wilful or deliberate disobedience of the interim injunction, the respondents having advanced strong reasons for not permitting use of the access road. In a further Court of Appeal matter the firm appeared for the appellant in a dispute engaging the Sabah Land Ordinance and the concept of communal title, with the Collector holding as trustee for native beneficiaries, in a controversy involving timber extraction, a plantation licence, a public auction and an alleged unlawful interference, together with the locus standi of the parties and an interim injunction. Across these matters the firm is recorded engaged with the particular body of land and equitable-remedy law that governs Sabah, together with the general principles of contempt of court, appearing on both sides of connected appeals and handling the interaction of native land rights, statutory trusteeship and the enforcement of injunctions. In the Sabah land matter the dispute drew in the Collector's role as trustee for native beneficiaries and an alleged unlawful interference with a plantation licence following a public auction, with questions of locus standi running throughout.