Esther Lee Zhi Qian

On the court record

Esther Lee Zhi Qian appears in the corpus as a High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) litigator across a strikingly varied set of matters — the civil-Syariah interface, arbitration, and company oppression. One matter, appearing for the plaintiff, was an originating summons seeking a declaration as to religious status and a mandamus directed at the National Registration Department: the court described the relief sought in Malay as a 'Deklarasi yang dimohon oleh Plaintif bahawa Plaintif ialah dan sentiasa seorang bukan Islam' (a declaration sought by the plaintiff that the plaintiff is, and has always been, a non-Muslim), together with a 'perintah bersifat mandamus' (an order in the nature of mandamus) requiring the department to update the plaintiff's religious status; the court considered that the declaration fell within the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court and that it was appropriate to refer the question of lineage and religious status to the Fatwa Committee or the Mufti. A second matter, appearing for the defendant, concerned a stay of proceedings under section 10 of the Arbitration Act 2005 arising from a dispute-resolution clause in a personal guarantee, and turned on whether the arbitration agreement was mandatory or optional, whether it had become inoperative once a party exercised a contractual right to litigate, and whether filing an application to set aside a judgment in default amounted to 'taking a step' in the proceedings. A third matter, again appearing for the defendant, was a minority-oppression claim under section 346 of the Companies Act 2016, in a company said to have operated for over three decades on the basis of mutual trust and informal arrangements with equal 25 per cent shareholdings, raising whether legitimate expectations arose beyond strict legal rights in a quasi-partnership. What connects these otherwise disparate matters is that each asks the court to look past a formal position to an underlying reality — the true religious status behind a registered entry, the true effect of a dispute-resolution clause when one party elects to litigate, and the true expectations of shareholders in a company built on informal trust rather than on the letter of its constitution. The profile is that of a versatile first-instance advocate at ease across public-law, arbitration and company disputes.