A legal review on the contempt of court in Malaysia / Saiful Haq Khider, Intan Natasha Yusri and Muhammad Afiq Asyraf Mohd Nardin

This project paper is a legal research study on the law governing the contempt of court in Malaysia. Contempt of court is an element used by the court to help protect the dignity of the administration of justice in a court session. Presently, the law governing the contempt of court in Malaysia is scattered and insufficient thus exposed to the abuse of power by the judicial system and caused injustice to the society, as the bench mark of what would amount to contempt of court are not described and defined in any Act that is available in Malaysia. A comparative study with the law governing the contempt of court in the United Kingdom will be used as a guideline and prove in laying out the weaknesses and loopholes on the law of contempt of court in our country. The purpose of this paper is to review the laws that govern the contempt of court in Malaysia. Many scholars have pointed out on the great importance of having our own contempt of court act and even the Bar Council have delivered their own proposed contempt of court act. However, the proposed act which have been proposed on the year 1999 is still under consideration of the Attorney General Chamber until the present day. Along the journey to complete this project paper, we have found out there are quite number of reasons for the improving the existing law governing the contempt of court in Malaysia. We also stumble upon cases pertaining to contempt of court that arises due to the lack of knowledge on the part of the litigant on what amount to contempt of court. Thus, we hope our study could bring light to the legal issues that have arisen due to the lack of law governing the contempt of court in Malaysia. Furthermore, it would also help in assisting the policy makers in Malaysia in improving the law by reviewing the current laws on contempt of court in Malaysia.