Azhahari Kamal bin Ramli

On the judicial record

An appellate judge whose reported corpus spans employment law, the constitutional law of citizenship, and criminal and commercial appeals.

Justice Azhahari Kamal bin Ramli sits in the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), and the reported decisions in this corpus span employment, constitutional, criminal and commercial appeals. Employment law is a distinct strand. One decision addresses the continuing post-employment duty of confidentiality and fidelity owed by employees even after they leave, particularly where confidential information is at stake, and a group of constructive-dismissal appeals concerns whether an employee has an equally valid option to remain with the current employer following the sale of a business to an associate company in which the employer holds a substantial shareholding, rather than being required to resign.

Constitutional citizenship questions feature prominently, mirroring the wider case law: citizenship by operation of law under Article 14(1)(b) of the Federal Constitution and the Second Schedule, including an abandoned child said to be 'found exposed' under section 19B and the position of a child born to an unmarried Malaysian father and a foreign mother.

Criminal appeals include a murder prosecution in which the respondents were jointly charged, and property and strata questions arise, such as the validity of a bifurcated management structure in a mixed development under the Building and Common Property (Maintenance and Management) Act 2007 and the Strata Management Act 2013. Cross-border enforcement is examined through the court's power under the Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgments Act 1958 to set aside the registration of a Singapore judgment on public-policy grounds. Land and trespass appeals also feature, including competing appeals over the use of an access road pending an acquisition and claims for the balance due under commercial arrangements. The overall picture is of an appellate judge whose reported work moves between the industrial-relations sphere, the constitutional law of citizenship, and a range of criminal and commercial appeals, decided on the correctness of the tribunal or trial court below. The recurring concern is whether the court or tribunal at first instance applied the right legal test to the facts it found, and the panel's task is to correct that application where it has gone wrong rather than to retry the matter afresh.