Hisyam Teh Poh Teik

On the court record

Hisyam Teh Poh Teik appears in the reported corpus as criminal-defence counsel, with drug prosecutions and the procedural protections of the accused prominent across the High Court and Court of Appeal. Several reported matters are trafficking appeals under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952: in one the court considered whether section 182A of the Criminal Procedure Code had been complied with, whether the defence had been fully considered at the close of the defence case, and whether the prosecution's failure to offer the tenant of the premises as a witness had prejudiced the accused. In another the appellant had originally been charged with trafficking in methamphetamine and convicted at the High Court with life imprisonment imposed, the appeal engaging the substitution of the charge and the applicable sentencing principles.

His reported work shows a sustained focus on the fairness of the process. In a criminal-revision matter he was engaged where the prosecution had not complied with pre-trial disclosure under section 51A(1)(c) of the Criminal Procedure Code, although a statement of favourable facts was available to it, and an application for a production order from the Sessions Court had been refused. In a further trafficking appeal he argued the adverse-inference principle under section 114(g) of the Evidence Act 1950, the presumption of trafficking, section 37(da) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 and sections 9 and 14 of the Evidence Act 1950. He also appeared as respondent's counsel in a judicial review touching prosecutorial discretion under Article 145(3) of the Federal Constitution and a discharge not amounting to an acquittal. The reported matters mark Hisyam Teh Poh Teik as counsel devoted to criminal defence, and in particular to the statutory presumptions, disclosure obligations and procedural safeguards that shape a drug trial. Across these reported decisions the common thread is a defence built on the integrity of the process — whether the statutory presumptions were properly applied, whether disclosure was made, and whether the accused's defence was genuinely weighed — rather than on the bare facts of possession alone.