In November 1968, a court in England ordered a man to hand over two books.

They were a cash book and a creditors’ ledger.

The man was Mr Hamilton, managing director of Bramblevale Ltd, a property company that had been put into liquidation. The liquidator wanted the books. The registrar gave Mr Hamilton seven days.¹In re Bramblevale Ltd [1970] Ch 128 (CA), 135–136 (Lord Denning MR), read on Lexis+ UK.

The seven days passed. The books did not come.

Mr Hamilton had an explanation. An articulated lorry had hit his car from behind a year earlier, he said. The books were in the boot. They were soaked in petrol and oil. The police took them away, and they ended in a dustbin.²Ibid, 136.

Megarry J did not believe him. Lord Denning later put the judge’s view in four words: a “cock and bull story”. Mr Hamilton was sent to prison for contempt of court, for no fixed term.³Ibid, 136.

Then the Court of Appeal let him out.

Not because his story was true. Lord Denning thought it was a lie. But a lie, he said, does not prove that a man still has the books.⁴Ibid, 137.

That small English case holds most of what a reader needs to know about contempt. In Negeri Sembilan this month, the reader needs it.

WHY THIS QUESTION, AND WHY NOW?

In July 2026 the Seremban High Court gave the Dewan Keadilan dan Undang (DKU) and its secretary leave to begin committal proceedings against six men. The six appealed. On 7 September the Court of Appeal reserved its decision on their application for a stay, and an interim stay holds until it decides.⁵The Star, 7 September 2026, “Court of Appeal reserves decision in Negri Sembilan Undang legal battle”; Malay Mail, 7 September 2026.

On 15 October the DKU, its secretary and its solicitors filed a second application for leave, against seventeen people, at the same court.⁶The Star, 19 October 2026, “Negri Sembilan DKU seeks contempt proceedings against Mentri Besar, 16 others”; The Edge Malaysia, 19 October 2026. No decision on leave had been reported by 24 October.

So let us be plain about what has not happened.

No court has found anyone in contempt. Leave is not a finding. An application is not a charge proved.

This essay will not guess how either application should end. It asks two simpler questions. What is contempt? And who decides?

WHAT CONTEMPT IS

A power with no statute behind it

Article 126 of the Federal Constitution gives the Federal Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court power “to punish any contempt of itself”.⁷Federal Constitution, art 126, read on Westlaw International (Malaysia Legislation), 25 October 2026. Section 13 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 says the same of the same three courts.

Note the last two words. Each court guards its own house.

Malaysia has no Contempt of Court Act. England has one; so does India. Here, said the Federal Court in 2002, contempt is “guided by the common law principles”.⁸Monatech (M) Sdn Bhd v Jasa Keramat Sdn Bhd [2002] 4 MLJ 241 (FC), 253, read on Lexis+ Malaysia. On 25 October 2026, neither Westlaw’s Malaysian legislation nor CLJLaw’s index of Act titles showed any federal contempt statute. The only Act CLJLaw lists with “contempt” in its title is the Contempt of the House (State of Selangor) Enactment 2009, which concerns a legislature, not a court.

The rules of procedure are in Order 52 of the Rules of Court 2012.

Two kinds of wrong

Lawyers speak of two kinds. The first is disobeying a court’s order: doing what it forbids, or failing to do what it requires. The second is conduct that interferes with justice more generally, whether or not any order has been broken.⁹Monatech, above, 253, distinguishing conduct that interferes with the administration of justice from a breach of a court order.

Mr Hamilton’s case was of the first kind. So, as reported, are both applications in Seremban.

WHO DECIDES

The short answer is a judge.

Not the person who applies. Not the person accused. Not the newspapers, and not the crowd outside.

Francis Bacon, who was himself Lord Chancellor of England, wrote four centuries ago that “the place of justice is an hallowed place”.¹⁰Francis Bacon, “Of Judicature” (first published 1612), essay LVI in the 1625 edition of the Essays. Contempt is how a court keeps it so. It is also why the court must be careful when it uses the power. The judge is guarding his own court’s order, so the law surrounds the power with gates.

THE ROAD, STEP BY STEP

The first gate: leave

No one may ask for a person to be committed without first getting the court’s leave. The applicant goes to the judge alone, with a statement of who is accused and on what grounds, and an affidavit swearing to the facts.¹¹Rules of Court 2012 (PU(A) 205/2012), O 52 r 3(1)–(2), in force unamended since 1 August 2012; read on Westlaw International.

Leave is a filter, not a verdict. It means only that there is a case to be answered.

The second gate: personal service

Within fourteen days of leave, the applicant must file the application itself, or the leave lapses. The papers must then be handed to the accused person in person, at least eight clear days before the hearing, unless the court directs otherwise.¹²Ibid, O 52 r 4(1)–(4).

Why so strict? Because liberty is at stake. A man must know exactly what he is said to have done, so that he can answer it.

The hearing and the standard of proof

Then comes the hearing, and the right to answer.

Here Mr Hamilton returns. Contempt, said Lord Denning, “is an offence of a criminal character. A man may be sent to prison for it.” So it must be proved beyond reasonable doubt.¹³Bramblevale, above, 137.

Two possibilities stood before the court in his case. He still had the books, or he had got rid of them. Each was as likely as the other. To pick one, said Lord Denning, would be “conjecture rather than inference – surmise rather than proof”.¹⁴Ibid, 137.

Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls for twenty years, wrote that sentence the way he wrote most things: short, plain, and impossible to forget. If you want the law of proof in four words, take his: “surmise rather than proof”.

Malaysia applies the same standard. The Federal Court said so in Monatech, following the Supreme Court before it.¹⁵Monatech, above, 253, approving Houng Hai Hong v MBf Holdings Bhd [1995] 4 CLJ 427 (SC).

The penalty

If the charge is proved, the court has a range of choices. It may suspend a committal order on terms, discharge the contemnor, require security for good behaviour, impose a fine, or send him to prison. It may also order costs.¹⁶Juris Technologies Sdn Bhd v Foo Tiang Sin [2019] 12 MLJ 785 (HC) at [25], 801–802, citing O 52 rr 7–9 of the Rules of Court 2012.

Here is a fact few readers know. No written law in Malaysia sets a maximum prison term for contempt.¹⁷Ibid, 802. In England and Wales, a superior court may commit for two years at most, and the term must be fixed.¹⁸Contempt of Court Act 1981 (UK), s 14(1), read on legislation.gov.uk. Mr Hamilton’s committal for no fixed term could not happen there today.

Appeal, and what a stay does

A person committed may appeal to the Court of Appeal.¹⁹Courts of Judicature Act 1964, s 67(1), read on Westlaw International.

A stay is different. It does not decide who is right. It presses pause, and in Malaysia it is granted only in special circumstances.²⁰Kosma Palm Oil Mill Sdn Bhd v Koperasi Serbausaha Makmur Bhd [2004] 1 MLJ 257 (FC). While the stay holds, the road is closed. Nobody moves forward, and nobody is sent back.

OBEY FIRST, ARGUE LATER

A quarrel on a Caribbean hillside

By 1977 a family on the island of Saint Vincent had fallen out over about one and three-quarter acres of land at Villa.

One relative got an injunction keeping another off the land. The man restrained chose not to attend the hearing. Later, facing committal, he argued that the injunction had been a nullity all along, because of a defect under the court’s rules.²¹Isaacs v Robertson [1985] AC 97 (PC), 100–101, read on Lexis+ UK.

The case went to the Privy Council in London.

Lord Diplock gave the answer. An order of a court of unlimited jurisdiction “must be obeyed unless and until it has been set aside by the court”.²²Ibid, 101.

Readers of 25/NS have met him before, in the Perak tin-mining case about who may enter a lawsuit. The same judge, fifteen years later, stands guard at a different door.

He relied on older words. In 1952 Romer LJ called the duty to obey “plain and unqualified”, even for someone who believes the order irregular or void.²³Hadkinson v Hadkinson [1952] P 285 (CA), 288 (Romer LJ), read on Lexis+ UK, drawing on Chuck v Cremer (1846).

Malaysia’s Federal Court says the same. An order of a superior court “must be obeyed until it is set aside” in proceedings brought for that purpose.²⁴Ann Joo Steel Bhd v Pengarah Tanah dan Galian Negeri Pulau Pinang [2020] 1 MLJ 689 (FC) at [45], 704–705, read on Lexis+ Malaysia.

Why the rule is not harsh

The rule does not say an order is right. It says where to argue that it is wrong: in court, by appeal or by an application to set it aside.

Think of a red pedestrian light at an empty crossing. You may think the light is badly timed. You may write to the council. But you do not settle the matter by walking out into the road.

WHAT THE READER CAN TAKE AWAY

Contempt is the court’s power to protect its own orders. Malaysia has no statute for it, only the Constitution, the common law and Order 52.

The judge decides. The road runs through leave, personal service, a hearing, proof beyond reasonable doubt, and only then a penalty. Appeal and stay stand at the end of the road.

And until a court rules, every person named in an application in Seremban stands exactly where Mr Hamilton stood before his hearing: accused of nothing proved.

 

 

∞§∞

 

This is for general information only, not legal or technical advice. Obtain independent legal advice where needed.

Thanks to KN Geetha, TP Vaani, JN Lheela and Lydia Jaynthi of GK Legal, and Ira Kang  of Unsplash for the image.

Claude assisted with drafting; Perplexity Pro fact-checked. The views and any errors are the author’s.

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