Contempt of court?

Since Pn Sitha has asked us to reflect on what we have learned, I have decided to reflect on the constitution. Recently, I am learning about contempt of court in constitution class.

This topic has raised so many questions that go unanswered until today. This is because there’s silent law on contempt of court in Malaysia. There’s suggestion that we should be having a more specific act on contempt of court in Malaysia like in United Kingdom where they have Contempt of Court Act 1981. However there’s still no specific act that touch on contempt of court in Malaysia until today.

Article 126 of the Federal Constitution only states about the power to punish for contempt-“The Federal Court, the Court of Appeal, or a High Court shall have the power to punish any contempt of itself.” However,there is no comprehensive stipulation anywhere of what is conduct amounting to contempt of court.

Based on previous case which is Lim Kit Siang v Dato Seri Mahathir Mohamad. This case is briefly about the statement made by our ex Prime Minister which can be considered as a contempt of court because he criticised the court for interpreting the law against the Parliament’s intention. However, the Supreme Council held that the statement made by the Prime Minister is not contempt of court. It’s said that in this case, the statement made by the Prime Minister is a fair criticism. Again, we have no right to question how the court made the decision and how the criticism made is considered fair.

Therefore, I would conclude that if the Legislative is not going to enact specific laws on contempt of court, then many people will continue to question on this topic even in years to come. Besides,this uncertainty in the use of contempt power can seriously affect the due representation of the rights of the litigants in court and thereby affect the administration of justice itself. I only can hope that the government is going to do something about this.

Ok I think that’s all for now.