Aznika Binti Mohd Anas

On the court record

Aznika Binti Mohd Anas appears in the reported corpus as counsel for the prosecution in anti-corruption proceedings before the Court of Appeal. The reported matter concerns offences under the Akta Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia 2009 (the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009), and the catchwords set out the statutory architecture she was engaged to argue. The charges arise under seksyen 17(a) — the offence of giving or receiving gratification by an agent — read with seksyen 19, which provides that the receiver or giver of gratification commits an offence tanpa mengambil kira maksud tidak dilaksanakan atau perkara tidak berkaitan dengan hal ehwal atau perniagaan principal (regardless of whether the purpose was carried out, or whether the matter was unconnected with the affairs or business of the principal), and seksyen 24(1), which fixes the penalty for such offences.

Appearing for the prosecution, her reported work engages the elements the state must establish in a corruption case built on the agent-gratification offence: the fact of the giving or receiving of gratification, the relationship of agency between the recipient and the principal, and the statutory rule that the offence is complete irrespective of whether the corrupt objective was ultimately achieved. The matter is characteristic of appellate anti-corruption litigation, in which the construction of the gratification offences under the 2009 Act, the sufficiency of the evidence and the correctness of the trial court's findings are the terrain on which the appeal is fought. The reported appearances place Aznika Binti Mohd Anas within the specialist field of anti-corruption prosecution, arguing the reach of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009 at the appellate level. She acts on the prosecution side of the record in these reported proceedings. As prosecuting counsel her reported work also engaged the standard of appellate intervention in a corruption case — whether the trial court's findings on the evidence of gratification were reasonably open to it — and the proper construction of the statutory presumptions that attend the gratification offences under the 2009 Act, on which the sufficiency of the prosecution's proof at the appellate stage depends.