Abu Samah bin Nordin

On the judicial record

A record of apex-level reasoning across government proceedings and the right to sue, the civil courts' jurisdiction over conversion certificates, banking and hire-purchase disputes, electricity back-billing, and defamation.

Abu Samah bin Nordin sits in the Federal Court, the apex court of Malaysia, and this collection gathers final appellate decisions across public, commercial and administrative law. A significant public-law matter concerns whether the Government has a right to sue, examining the statutory basis of a cause of action and the application of written law to government proceedings. Administrative law is engaged in a landmark judicial-review matter on the certiorari jurisdiction to quash certificates of conversion to Islam of children and the civil courts' jurisdiction over such a challenge. Banking and commercial law feature through the banker-and-customer relationship, breach of contract and breach of trust in a corporate financing dispute, a hire-purchase transaction where a deposit was paid to the dealer and financing obtained from a financial institution, and an overdraft facility where the pleadings raised negligence over a wrongful withdrawal. Public-utility litigation appears through the recovery of unbilled or back-billed electricity and the security of a meter room. Company law is addressed through a claim for accounts and damages for fraud, forgery and trespass. Criminal procedure features through an appeal against the setting aside of a forfeiture order, and defamation through libel in newspaper articles concerning a public figure and whether the statements were defamatory. Because the Federal Court sits in panels and its rulings bind the courts below, these decisions settle points of general importance rather than merely resolving the dispute at hand. Private individuals are referred to by role; corporate, governmental, banking and media parties are named. A recurring concern is the boundary of the civil courts' jurisdiction and the accountability of both public and private actors, from a government body to a bank to a utility. The collection is a valuable record of apex-level reasoning across government proceedings, banking, administrative law and defamation, and of the durable principles the apex court settles for the courts below.