Yeoh Mazlina & Partners

On the court record

The firm's record includes apex-court matters on the boundary between the civil and Syariah jurisdictions over religious status, the constitutional limits of the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012, and the separation of powers in relation to the dispensing rights of medical practitioners.

Yeoh Mazlina & Partners appears in the corpus as counsel in constitutional, administrative and religious-jurisdiction litigation, argued in the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan).

A significant matter concerns the boundary between the civil and Syariah jurisdictions. Acting for the respondents in connected appeals involving the Selangor Islamic Religious Council and the National Registration Department, the firm appeared where the court considered whether a case concerning a person's religious status was a renunciation case or an ab initio case, holding that renunciation cases fall within the jurisdiction of the Syariah Courts, and examining the definition of a Muslim under the Administration of the Religion of Islam (State of Selangor) Enactment 2003 and related provisions, together with the Islamic Family Law Enactment, in determining whether a person professes the religion of Islam for the purposes of the State List.

The firm also appeared in a Federal Court constitutional matter concerning the right to peaceful assembly under Article 10(1)(b) of the Federal Constitution, the permissible restrictions under Article 10(2)(b), and equality and proportionality under Article 8(1), where the requirement in section 9(1) and (5) of the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 to give the police ten days' notice, and the criminalisation of a failure to notify under section 9(5), were said to disproportionately restrict the constitutional right.

In a further Federal Court matter, acting for the respondents, the firm appeared in an originating summons concerning the vested rights of registered medical practitioners to dispense medicine under the Poisons Act 1952 read with the Poisons Regulations 1952, where the court addressed the doctrine of the separation of powers and whether the declarations sought would amount to judicial interference with executive and legislative policy on the use of a particular medicine. The firm's record is a public-law and constitutional practice engaging questions of significant public importance.