Utama Wan Ahmad Farid bin Wan Salleh

On the judicial record

Shows an apex- and appellate-level judge engaging across free expression under Article 10 of the Federal Constitution, consumer-protection housing law under the Housing Development Act 1976, employment, and the review of capital sentences after a pardon.

Utama Wan Ahmad Farid bin Wan Salleh appears in this collection sitting in the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court, and the docket spans constitutional, housing, employment and criminal law. Constitutional law features prominently in a free-expression matter engaging Article 10(1)(a) and Article 10(2)(a) of the Federal Constitution and the constitutional supremacy provisions of Article 4, concerning the freedom of speech and its permissible limits. Housing-development law is a substantial and recurring strand through a series of linked appeals concerning a developer's obligations under the Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Act 1976 and its regulations — good workmanship, quality of materials, the defects-liability period, and the limits on contracting out under regulation 11(1B) of the 1989 Regulations. Employment and administrative-law appeals recur, as do land appeals turning on statutory time limits, including whether an appeal under section 418 of the National Land Code was brought within the three-month period. Arbitration features in appeals on the applicability and proper interpretation of an arbitration clause. Criminal law appears at the apex level in the review of a death sentence following a pardon by the Pardons Board constituted under the Federal Constitution, a distinctive procedure for re-examining a capital sentence after clemency. Because the Federal Court and Court of Appeal sit in panels and their rulings bind or guide the courts below, these decisions settle points of general importance. Private individuals are referred to by role; corporate, governmental and statutory parties are named. A recurring theme is the protection of the weaker party against the stronger — the house buyer against the developer, the citizen against a restriction on speech — read against the governing statute and constitutional text. The collection is valuable for showing how an apex- and appellate-level judge engages across constitutional rights, consumer-protection housing law, employment and capital sentencing.