Media Arbitration Schemes: Addressing the Backlog of Defamation Cases in Malaysia
The rise in defamation claims in Malaysia has placed an onerous workload on the courts to deal with such matters. Against this backdrop, Hamid Sultan Abu Backer JC (as his Lordship then was) suggested in two separate High Court decisions that to alleviate the courts’ burden, matters pertaining to libel and slander ought to be constrained to the criminal courts through appropriate statutory amendments, including to the Criminal Procedure Code (Malaysia). In this paper, the author cautions against the learned Hamid Sultan JC’s recommendations and proffers an alternative proposal in the form of media arbitration schemes to handle the growing influx of defamation claims. In particular, the salient features of the IMPRESS and IPSO Schemes from the United Kingdom are scrutinised in detail and measured in terms of suitability for a potential arbitration scheme in the Malaysian jurisdiction.
Domain Name Dispute Resolution: Mitigating Personal Data Loss during the COVID-19 Movement Control Order
Phishing schemes that leverage off the registration of confusingly similar domains has led to the loss of personal data for companies and individuals alike. This activity seems to have increased following the movement restrictions imposed by the Government of Malaysia in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whilst a court action for the tort of passing off is a possible remedy to address the issue of email-based phishing and website spoofing, there are several advantages to domain name dispute resolution (DNDR), which the author argues, is a faster and more cost-effective alternative to traditional litigation that achieves the primary goal of restraining further fraudulent activities from being conducted through misleading domain names.
Extradition: The Keystone in the Administration of Justice for Transnational Crimes
The problem of fugitive criminals who evade arrest by escaping to other jurisdictions has been a perennial thorn in the side of law enforcement, especially in light of the various transnational crimes being committed such as money-laundering, drug trafficking and modern slavery. Thus, in order to ensure that countries do not become havens from justice, the process of extradition has been carefully crafted to resolve this issue. This form of international cooperation, elegant in its simplicity, involves fugitive criminals, or those accused of crimes, being sent by their host country back to the country where the crime was allegedly committed in order to face trial or serve their sentence in that jurisdiction. As expressed by the Supreme Court of Canada in Kindler v. Canada (Minister of Justice) and quoted by our Federal Court in Said Mir Bahrami v. Pengarah Penjara Sungai Buloh, Selangor, it is a system “founded on concepts of comity and reciprocity” between different sovereign nations. Typically, this process would take the form of bilateral or multilateral treaties that would then be gazetted as law via orders promulgated under a broader legislative umbrella of extradition law.