Eyu Ghim Siang

On the court record

An appellate criminal practice in the Court of Appeal spanning drug trafficking, homicide and kidnapping.

Eyu Ghim Siang appears in the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), with the reported decisions showing him acting both as respondent and for the prosecution in criminal appeals. The core of the work is serious crime: trafficking under "seksyen 39B(1)(a) Akta Dadah Berbahaya 1952" (section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952), including matters in which an accused faces two trafficking charges, and homicide under "seksyen 302 Kanun Keseksaan" (section 302 of the Penal Code).

Beyond drugs and murder, the catchwords reveal a wider criminal range, including a kidnapping prosecution ("menculik") and offences carrying grievous-hurt elements under section 326. The appeals engage the statutory presumptions of the Dangerous Drugs Act — the trafficking presumption in "seksyen 37(da)(xvi)" is expressly in issue — and the adverse-inference provision in "seksyen 114(g) Akta Keterangan 1950" (section 114(g) of the Evidence Act 1950). Much of the argument is framed as "rayuan terhadap sabitan dan hukuman" (appeals against conviction and sentence).

Taken as a whole, the reported matters describe an appellate criminal practice in the Court of Appeal spanning the most serious offence categories — trafficking, homicide and kidnapping — in which counsel argues on both sides of the record across different cases. The work turns on whether the trial court correctly applied the statutory presumptions, weighed the evidence, and reached a safe conviction, and on the appropriate sentence, rather than on the primary conduct of the trial. The presence of kidnapping and grievous-hurt matters alongside the trafficking and homicide appeals gives the practice an unusually wide serious-crime range for appellate work, and in each the argument is directed to whether the conviction is safe and the sentence sound on the record as it stood in the court below. Acting variously for the prosecution and as respondent, counsel's task in these appeals is to defend or to test the trial court's findings on the statutory presumptions and on the sufficiency of the evidence.