Pertubuhan Keselamatan Sosial

On the court record

The social-security organisation, litigating the meaning of "employment injury" under the Employees' Social Security Act 1969 and invalidity-pension appeals, alongside contract, Mareva-injunction and land-foreclosure matters as a public institution.

Pertubuhan Keselamatan Sosial (the Social Security Organisation, known as SOCSO or PERKESO) is the statutory body administering employment-injury and invalidity social security, and it appears in the corpus in a broader-than-expected range of litigation — social-security appeals, contract and injunction disputes, and land foreclosure — as intervener, defendant, respondent and applicant across the High Court and Court of Appeal.

The core social-security work is illustrated by two matters. At the Court of Appeal the question was the meaning of "employment injury" under section 2(6) read with section 24(1) of the Employees' Social Security Act 1969, and the exception in section 24(2), where an employee was injured in a commuting accident — whether an interruption or deviation was for an economic pursuit or was necessary for the work. In a Malay-language appeal a claimant challenged a decision of the Social Security Appeal Board rejecting an application for an invalidity pension, which the court held to be incompetent for being made outside the period fixed under section 91 of the Act and without merit.

The organisation's other appearances reflect its position as a contracting party and a creditor. In one matter it intervened where a Mareva injunction was sought, the court considering whether the elements of a Mareva injunction were satisfied — a good arguable case, assets within the jurisdiction, and a real risk of dissipation in the face of dishonest conduct. In another it was a defendant to a breach-of-contract claim founded on a Letter of Appointment, and in a further matter it appeared in land foreclosure and an order for sale, engaging cause to the contrary, indefeasibility, a put-and-call option agreement and the service of notice. The organisation's footprint thus combines its statutory adjudication of injury and invalidity claims with the ordinary commercial and land litigation of a large public institution.