Tengku Maimun binti Tuan Mat

On the judicial record

A Federal Court judge whose reported corpus settles foundational constitutional and public-law questions, from peaceful assembly and equality to the boundaries of judicial power.

Justice Tengku Maimun binti Tuan Mat sits in the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan), Malaysia's apex court, and the reported decisions in this corpus resolve foundational questions of constitutional, criminal and public law. Constitutional adjudication is prominent. Decisions engage the right to peaceful assembly under Article 10(1)(b) of the Federal Constitution and the permissible restrictions under Article 10(2)(b), the guarantee of equality and proportionality under Article 8(1), and the supremacy of the Constitution under Article 4(1) in striking down laws inconsistent with it. In one decision the court examined section 498 of the Penal Code, describing it as an archaic provision from an era when women were regarded as the property of men, and considered its continued validity.

Criminal law and the separation of powers feature through a decision examining section 61A and whether the treatment of certain matters as 'prima facie evidence' abrogated or subjugated judicial power to the Legislature, the court concluding that it did not. Administrative law recurs, including judicial review of a decision of the Director-General of Inland Revenue and whether the availability of a domestic remedy barred the review, and a challenge to the validity of a fatwa issued by a State Islamic religious authority.

The corpus also engages commercial and professional questions — the vested rights of registered medical practitioners to dispense medicine under the Poisons Act 1952, trademark infringement and passing off under the Trade Marks Act 1976, and the continuity of an expatriate's employment under the 'single economic unit' test. Civil-procedure questions of general reach also arise, including the interpretation and determination of vested rights by originating summons and contempt through the offence of scandalising the court. The decisions reflect the work of an apex-court judge resolving contested points of the highest importance for the guidance of the courts below, where each ruling settles the governing principle for the legal system as a whole. The corpus is notable for the weight it places on constitutional text and structure, reading individual statutory provisions against the guarantees in Part II of the Constitution and the boundaries between the branches of government.