Aslam bin Zainuddin

On the judicial record

A clear guide to how a High Court judge applies the prima-facie-case threshold at the close of the prosecution and the statutory sentencing framework at the close of the defence in drug-trafficking prosecutions under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.

Aslam bin Zainuddin sits in the High Court, and this collection is overwhelmingly criminal, dominated by prosecutions for trafficking in dangerous drugs under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952. A distinctive feature is that the judgments are authored in English while reproducing the charge in the court's own Bahasa Malaysia, opening with the statutory formula Bahawa kamu (That you) before setting out the date, place and particulars of the offence. The judgments trace the two decisive stages of a trafficking trial with unusual clarity. At the close of the prosecution case the court asks whether a prima facie case has been made out; in several matters it found that the prosecution had failed to do so and acquitted the accused without calling on them to enter a defence. Where the accused were called and a defence heard, the court recorded its findings at the close of the defence case, in a number of matters convicting and passing the sentences the statute prescribes — life imprisonment and whipping of twelve strokes on the trafficking charge. Alongside the trials, criminal appeals appear, including an appeal by an accused against a charge amended before the lower court, the amended charge again set out verbatim in Malay. A smaller strand of judicial-review and civil work rounds out the list. Throughout, the court sets out the charge, works methodically through the evidence stage by stage, and records the disposition in the operative terms in which it was pronounced, so that the reader can see exactly where the prosecution succeeded or failed. In keeping with the site's suppression rule, accused persons are referred to by their role, and are named only where the case name itself is displayed; institutional parties such as the prosecuting authority are named. The collection is a clear guide to how one High Court judge applies the prima-facie-case threshold at the close of the prosecution and the statutory sentencing framework at the close of the defence in Malaysian drug-trafficking prosecutions.