Kerajaan Persekutuan Malaysia

On the court record

A federal defendant whose matters show the Government striking out unsustainable claims, resisting judicial review and mandamus, contesting freezing orders, and appearing in constitutional references.

Kerajaan Persekutuan Malaysia (the Federal Government of Malaysia) appears in the corpus as a public-authority defendant and respondent across striking-out, judicial-review, asset-preservation and constitutional matters, and its appearances show the breadth of Government litigation. In a matter framed in Bahasa Malaysia the court considered a defendants' notis permohonan (notice of application) to strike out a plaintiffs' writ dan pernyataan tuntutan (writ and statement of claim) under Aturan 18 Kaedah 19 Kaedah-Kaedah Mahkamah 2012 (Order 18 rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012). In an administrative-law matter the court addressed leave to commence judicial review and certiorari where the decision under challenge had been made in Sarawak under a written law enacted by the Sarawak Legislature, raising whether the High Court of Malaya had jurisdiction to review it, and a request for mandamus to compel the Federal Government to enact a uniform law.

In a Mareva-injunction matter the court dismissed an application to restrain the disposal of assets and to compel disclosure, holding that the plaintiff had failed to establish the essential criteria — a good arguable case, a real risk of asset dissipation and proper pleading of fraudulent trading — and emphasising the need for solid evidence over mere suspicion. In a Federal Court matter it was a respondent in a constitutional reference under sections 84 and 85 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 connected to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

For a reader, the cluster illustrates the Federal Government's recurring roles: striking out unsustainable claims, resisting judicial review and mandamus, contesting freezing orders, and constitutional references. The Government and its agencies in their official capacity are named as they appear on the record; individual claimants are referred to by their procedural role only. The breadth of the Federal Government's appearances — striking out, judicial review, freezing orders and constitutional references — reflects its ubiquity as a litigant, and a recurring theme is the discipline the courts impose on those who sue it: unsustainable claims are struck out, judicial review is confined by jurisdiction and justiciability, and extraordinary remedies such as a freezing order require solid evidence rather than suspicion.