Collin Lawrence Sequerah

On the judicial record

An appellate and Federal Court judge whose reported corpus is anchored in murder and drug appeals and the sentencing reforms that followed abolition of the mandatory death penalty.

Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah sits in the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and, increasingly, the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan), and the reported decisions in this corpus are strongly criminal, with a significant body of sentencing-reform work. Murder appeals recur, turning on questions such as the identification of the accused by eyewitnesses and the reliability of that identification, and whether expert and direct evidence established that the appellant's act caused the death, including a case examining the effect of intoxication where the quantity of an active ingredient consumed was too small to affect behaviour.

A prominent group of Federal Court decisions concerns the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023 and sentencing under section 97(2) of the Child Act 2001, under which an offender who was a child at the time is to be 'detained in prison during the pleasure of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) or Ruler'. The court considered whether that form of detention offends the right to life and personal liberty under Article 5 of the Federal Constitution, concluding that it does not, because the child offender is dealt with under a distinct statutory regime.

Drug-trafficking appeals under seksyen 39B(1)(a) Akta Dadah Berbahaya 1952 (section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952) are well represented, turning on the accused's knowledge of and possession of the drugs. The corpus also reaches commercial appeals — for example a privity-of-contract dispute where an appellant's original contract with a local authority was novated to a concessionaire, leaving no direct contractual relationship with the government respondents. Across the criminal appeals the recurring exercise is the assessment of whether the trial court correctly evaluated the evidence at the close of the prosecution and again at the close of the defence, and whether the statutory presumptions were properly applied before conviction. The overall picture is of an appellate and apex-court judge whose reported work is anchored in the criminal law and the transitional sentencing regime that followed abolition of the mandatory death penalty, with the correctness of the trial court's fact-finding the persistent concern.