Aliza binti Sulaiman

On the judicial record

A High Court judge whose reported corpus is anchored in construction, property-development and arbitration disputes, and the award-review machinery under the Arbitration Act 2005.

Justice Aliza binti Sulaiman sits mainly in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi), with occasional Court of Appeal work, and the reported decisions in this corpus concentrate on construction, arbitration and property-development disputes. Arbitration is a defining theme. Several decisions concern applications to set aside an arbitral award under section 37 of the Arbitration Act 2005, including a challenge that a draft final award submitted for technical review otherwise than in accordance with the AIAC Rules deprived the arbitrator of his mandate, and a question of the relationship between a High Court reference to arbitration under section 24A(2) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 and a reference under the Arbitration Act 2005.

Housing-development and strata disputes recur. Decisions address whether a developer owes purchasers a tortious duty of care to ensure that housing parcels are safe and fit for habitation, whether a developer breached its obligation to obtain individual strata titles under the sale-and-purchase agreements, and questions of forum and standing in disputes over management resolutions in stratified developments. Construction and building-contract claims feature too, including disputes over extensions of time and whether delay to a site-possession date was caused by a party's failure to obtain approvals from the local authority.

The corpus also reaches administrative and defamation matters — a judicial-review-style challenge to a land administrator's decision on a building setback said to be ultra vires and unsafe, and a defamation action turning on whether an impugned statement was distributed, whether it referred to the claimant, and whether the defence of justification applied. Procedural questions of striking out and jurisdiction appear throughout. A further group of decisions concerns whether a plaintiff has sued the right party on interlocking letters of award and a consultation contract, and whether a claim was brought in the wrong forum such that the court lacked jurisdiction to determine the validity of a management resolution. The overall impression is of a High Court judge whose reported work is anchored in the construction and development sector and the arbitration and adjudication machinery that resolves its disputes, with questions of jurisdiction, standing and the correct forum recurring throughout.