K. Shanmuga

On the court record

This profile spans constitutional interpretation, strata governance, defamation and legal-profession discipline, including a reported Federal Court appearance, drawn from the judgments themselves.

K. Shanmuga's reported matters include appearances at the apex of the court system and reach constitutional, public-law and reputational disputes. In a Federal Court appeal concerning section 233(1)(a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and the meaning of the words offensive and annoy, argued against the guarantee of free speech and expression in Article 10(1)(a) of the Federal Constitution and the permissible restrictions in Article 10(2)(a), he appeared as counsel for an intervener. The appeal engaged the presumption of constitutionality, the principle of reading down and the doctrine of avoiding vagueness in a penal provision.

Public-law and property themes appear in a Court of Appeal matter arising from a strata-management dispute, where the pleaded issues included locus standi, the tort of deceit, the role of a joint management body and the statutory duties of office bearers. Appearing for appellants, the Court found the High Court judge's conclusions were reached in disregard of material evidence and were in respects contrary to the documentary record, allowed the appeal, set aside the decision below and ordered costs of RM120,000.

Reputational and professional-conduct litigation completes the profile. In a Court of Appeal defamation appeal he acted for the respondent publisher, and the Court, having found that the impugned words did not refer to the plaintiff, dismissed the appeal and affirmed the decision below with costs of RM20,000. In a separate appeal engaging section 103E of the Legal Profession Act 1976, concerning a disciplinary complaint about how an opposing advocate had been described, he appeared for the appellant; the Court dismissed the appeal, affirmed the High Court order and made no order as to costs. A thread running through these matters is the testing of statutory language and institutional power against constitutional and common-law limits, whether the words of a penal provision, the statutory duties of a management body, or the disciplinary reach of the profession's own regulator. The reported work thus ranges from constitutional interpretation before the Federal Court to strata governance, defamation and legal-profession discipline before the Court of Appeal.