Azizah binti Haji Nawawi

On the judicial record

An appellate and Federal Court judge whose reported corpus centres on the constitutional law of citizenship and the administrative law of public-service discipline.

Justice Azizah binti Haji Nawawi sits in the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and increasingly in the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan), and the reported decisions in this corpus are strongly weighted toward constitutional and administrative law. Citizenship is a defining theme. Several appeals concern citizenship by operation of law under Article 14(1)(b) of the Federal Constitution and the Second Schedule, including the position of an abandoned child said to be 'found exposed' within the meaning of section 19B, and the requirements of jus soli and jus sanguinis where a child born in Malaysia to an unmarried Malaysian father and a foreign mother is said to be illegitimate — raising whether proof of both parental citizenship and birth in the Federation is required.

Administrative law features through judicial review of public-service disciplinary proceedings, including the dismissal of police officers within the Royal Malaysia Police (Polis Diraja Malaysia) and whether the disciplinary authority's failure to give reasons vitiated the dismissal. Land-acquisition questions arise, such as whether a paymaster like an electricity utility has standing to intervene in a land-reference proceeding without filing the prescribed form.

The corpus also reaches commercial and criminal matters. Monetary claims arising from a joint-venture agreement come before the panel, as do Federal Court decisions within the transitional resentencing exercise under the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023 and section 97(2) of the Child Act 2001. Trespass and land-use disputes also come before the panel, including competing appeals over the use of an access road pending a land acquisition and claims for rent arrears on rented lots. The combination reflects an appellate and apex-court judge whose reported work concentrates on the constitutional law of citizenship and the administrative law of public-service discipline, decided by close construction of the constitutional text and the governing statutory scheme rather than at large. Across these appeals the recurring exercise is the disciplined application of settled constitutional principle to the particular facts, so that a stateless child's entitlement or an officer's dismissal is measured against the same textual and procedural safeguards.