The Malaysian Legal System

Law is a body of rule which is enforceable by the state. The aim of the whole legal system is to attain justice in society. Thus, the enactment of law is to encourage the doing of what is right and what is wrong. Malaysia practices adversarial system, which means it is the parties decide what evidence shall be adduced subject to the rules of admissibility and it is on the basis of the admissible evidence adduced by the parties that the court must come to a decision. Malaysia, which consists of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak is under one political unit, but it is not governed by the same set of laws.Basically, justice refers to fairness and rightfulness. However, what is justice in Malaysia may not necessarily mean justice in other countries and therefore we have an open court system.

Classification of Law :

Law can be classified into three different categories which consists of public law, international law and private law. Public law governs the relationship between the state and its citizens, where else international law regulates the relationship between one state and another, lastly is the private law which concerned with matters that affect the rights and duties of individuals among themselves.

Sources of Law in Malaysia :

Sources of law in Malaysia can be classified into written and unwritten constitution. Written law is basically law that had been codified by the Federal ans State Constitution. Written law in Malaysia consists of Federal and State Constitution, subsidiary legislation and legislation enacted by parliament and state assemblies. Federal constitution is the supreme law of the land comprising 13 states where it lays down the power of the Federal and State governments and also enshrines the fundamental rights of the individuals. Our Parliament as a legislative body has the capacity to amend , repeal and make new constitution by way of two third majority vote of the both houses of Parliament. ( Dewan Negara & Dewan Rakyat).


As for the State Constitution, each state possesses its own constitution regulating the government of the state which known as the enactment. State constitution discusses matter such as state executive members, finance, state legislative assembly, role of the Sultan and many more. Although State Constitution carries the task to regulate its own government at , any law passes after the independence day with inconsistent with the Federal Constitution is void. In theory, power to rule in Malaysia divided into legislative, executive and judiciary. Power to make law is vested to the legislative body, However, there are too little laws made by legislative body. Part of the power is vested to the executive body. Hence, the legislation made by executive body through delegation is known as the subsidiary legislation.On the other hand, Malaysia also practices unwritten law where it includes English law, Syariah law, judicial decision and customary law. Unwritten law it does not mean that it is not written but they are merely not made by the formal legislative bodies.

Malaysian Court System :

The Malaysian legal system hierarchy is mainly centered despite federal constitution of Malaysia. In Malaysian legal system hierarchy there are usually two kinds of trials, namely civil and criminal. The jurisdictions of courts in the matters of civil or criminal cases are there in the Subordinate Courts Act 1948 and Courts of Judicature Act 1964.The Article 121 of the Constitution presents two High Courts of equivalent jurisdiction, the Malaysian High Court and the High Court in Sarawak and Sabah. Hence, this forms two different local jurisdictions of courts for the Peninsular Malaysia and also for the East Malaysia. The special court in Malaysia which also known as the Syariah Courts have jurisdiction over the issues of Muslims and has an imprisonment term of not exceeding three years.