Malaysia practices amixed legal system that encompasses Joint Laws, Islamic law and Native Laws.The Malaysian legal system comprises laws emerging from three importantmilestones in the history of Malaysia namely, from the time of the sultanate ofMelaka, from the spread of Islam to Southeast Asia, and the absorption of thecultures of the British colonizers who introduced the constitutional andcollective laws of the country . The Malaysian Legal System is based on thegeneral English law. Malaysia’s legal sources, the legal rules used to makelaws in Malaysia, can be classified into written and unwritten laws. Written law is a law that has been enacted in the constitution or law. Writtenlaw is passed by parliment, this is the primary source of law in malaysia aseven case law is based on the interpretation and application of the law containedin statue should any judgement pronounced by any court be deemed to conflictwith a statutory provision, this may be a ground of appeal of the court’sdecision as the court is acting beyond the authority vested in i in the Federalconstitution.
Unwritten laws are lawsthat are not contained in any statute and are available in decision cases. Unwrittenlaw is based on cases. Judges are given the authority to apply the dictates ofstatue to the particular facts of the case. The judges are also bound by theconcept of judicial precedent. This concept basically involves the individualjudges being bound to adhere to the law decided by their brethen in courts ofsuperior jurisdication to them. The application of stated law to a particularset of facts is not always predicable due to the endless myriad of factualscenarios that can and does arise, in changing times and attitudes.
If thejudge finds insufficient aid in the judicial decisions of the past, the judgeis still bound to apply the law as it stands to the facts of the case in amanner most benifitting the cause of this profession justice. In this assignment, we will explain in detail about Malaysian legal resourcesand why legal resources are very important in reviewing the Malaysian LegalSystem in this assignment.
