Rhodzariah binti Bujang

On the judicial record

A Federal Court judge whose reported corpus spans consumer-housing damages and criminal-sentencing reform under the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023 and the Child Act 2001.

Justice Rhodzariah binti Bujang sits in the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan), Malaysia's apex court, and the reported decisions in this corpus reflect the range of questions of general importance that reach that court. Consumer and housing protection features through a decision on a summary-judgment application under Order 14 of the Rules of Court in a claim for liquidated damages for the late delivery of vacant possession of commercial units, where the timing of conversion and building-plan approvals bore on the developer's liability to purchasers — a matter of practical consequence for buyers of stratified property.

Criminal law and sentencing reform form a prominent strand. A group of 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 examined whether that form of detention is consistent with the right to life and personal liberty under Article 5 of the Federal Constitution, concluding that it does not offend Article 5 because the child offender is dealt with under a distinct statutory regime rather than the sentence otherwise applicable to adults.

These appeals sit within the wider transitional exercise of resentencing persons formerly subject to the mandatory death penalty, an exercise that has occupied the apex court since the 2023 reforms and required the court to construe the new sentencing discretion against the sentences the offenders had originally received. As a Federal Court judge, her reported decisions are directed at settling the governing principle for the courts below rather than merely disposing of the parties' immediate dispute, and they show the court balancing statutory interpretation, constitutional guarantees and the practical administration of sentencing across both the civil and criminal jurisdictions. The recurring discipline in the corpus is the resolution of a contested point of law once, in terms the subordinate courts can then apply, whether the subject is a consumer's claim against a developer or the liberty of an offender sentenced as a child.