Joseph Khor

On the court record

The reported matters show sustained land-law and administrative-review practice, from Form 7A/7B notice challenges to compulsory-acquisition references, argued in the High Court at Johor Bahru and the Court of Appeal.

Joseph Khor's reported matters, argued with the team at Messrs Mah Weng Kwai & Associates, concentrate on land law and the review of decisions taken by land administrators under the National Land Code (Kanun Tanah Negara 1965). A recurring pattern is the statutory challenge to enforcement notices. In several originating summonses filed in the High Court at Johor Bahru under section 418 of the Code, he appeared for registered proprietors seeking to set aside Form 7A and Form 7B notices (Borang 7A dan Borang 7B) issued by the Pentadbir Tanah (the Land Administrator) for an alleged breach of an express condition of title. The applicants argued mala fide, improper purpose and Wednesbury unreasonableness, but the Court held that the evidential threshold for intervention had not been met. In one such matter the disposition was recorded in the court's own words: Mahkamah dengan ini MENOLAK Saman Pemula Pemohon (the Court hereby dismisses the applicant's originating summons), with the applicant ordered to pay costs (Pemohon diperintahkan membayar kos — the applicant is ordered to pay costs).

The profile also extends to compulsory acquisition. In a land-reference appeal before the Court of Appeal concerning the market value of acquired land and the correct category of land use, he appeared for the appellants. The panel found that the High Court judge had not been plainly wrong and that the valuation conclusion was capable of reasonable explanation, so the appeal was dismissed and the decision below affirmed, with costs of RM20,000 payable to the respondent.

A common feature of the Form 7A and 7B challenges is that the courts declined to disturb the Land Administrator's exercise of statutory discretion, confirming the notices as valid at law and leaving the proprietor to any remaining remedy at the show-cause stage. Across these decisions the work is administrative and land-related: judicial control of statutory discretion, the enforcement machinery of Forms 7A and 7B under sections 128 and 129 of the Code, and the assessment of compensation on acquisition, argued both at first instance in the High Court at Johor Bahru and before the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya.