New rules amend court procedure - International Law Office

A slew of both new legislation and amendments to existing legislation has recently emerged on the Malaysian legal landscape. In addition to acts amending free speech legislation and mediation procedures, several changes have been made to the rules on court procedure.

The new Combined Rules of Court came into effect on August 1 2012, merging the existing provisions of the Subordinate Court Rules and the High Court Rules into one comprehensive code. Most notably, the different forms of originating process have been discarded in favour of either a writ action, involving a trial with oral evidence, or an originating summons action, involving evidence by affidavit only.

Other key amendments include:

• extending the powers of a judge during case management;
• streamlining time limits for entering an appearance and filing an appeal from registrar to judge to 14 days; and
• stipulating that claims for general damages may no longer be quantified in a claim or counterclaim.

Substantially new provisions have also been introduced for arbitration, admiralty and cost proceedings.

For further information on this topic please contact Nahendran Navaratnam at Kadir Andri & Partners by telephone (+603 2078 2888), fax (+603 2078 8431) or email (nn@kaaplaw.com).