Majlis Perubatan Malaysia

On the court record

Marks how the courts supervise a professional regulator's disciplinary process, with recurring attention to standing, the right of appeal and the effect of statutory amendment and repeal.

Majlis Perubatan Malaysia (the Malaysian Medical Council) appears in the reported judgments as the statutory regulator of the medical profession named as a respondent in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi), the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan), in judicial-review matters concerning its handling of complaints of professional misconduct. Its presence marks disputes about the reviewability of a professional regulator's disciplinary decisions and the standing of those affected.

In one matter the council was a respondent where a complainant sought, by judicial review, to quash the council's dismissal of his complaint of medical misconduct, raising a right of appeal and the scope of an aggrieved person under sections 30 and 31(1) of the Medical Act 1971. The court considered the effect of the repeal of section 31(2) of the Medical Act 1971 and the retrospective operation of section 42(5) of the Medical (Amendment) Act 2012, engaging section 30(1)(a) and (d) of the Interpretation Acts 1948 and 1967 — questions that determine whether and how a complainant may challenge a regulator's decision not to proceed against a practitioner.

A second decision concerned certiorari to quash a decision of the council finding a doctor not guilty of professional misconduct under section 30 of the Medical Act 1971, where the applicants were the patient and her husband; the central question was whether they had the requisite locus standi to bring the judicial review, in circumstances where the patient's medical-negligence suit against the doctor had been settled amicably by a consent judgment without any admission of liability, and whether they were estopped from raising negligence in the review. A further Federal Court decision involved the council in a dispute with a higher-learning institution. Across the matters, the council illustrates how the courts supervise a professional regulator's disciplinary process, with recurring attention to standing, the right of appeal and the effect of statutory amendment and repeal on those rights.