KUALA LUMPUR, July 6 – Ruling that a sessions court judge had erred in his judgement, the High Court today set aside the judge’s decision to whip a 20-year-old sales promoter 10 times with a light cane after he had pleaded guilty last month to armed robbery.
On June 26, Sessions Court judge Zainal Abidin Kamarudin had also ordered Muhamad Syafiq Abd Wahab to perform 200 hours of community service.
Following this, Chief Justice Tun Zaki Tun Azmi directed the High Court to carry out a revision of the case.
This morning, Justice Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, who set aside the decision to whip, upheld the 200 hours of community service ordered by Zainal Abidin.
However, he remitted the case to the lower court to decide on the appropriate type of community service for the offence.
“I fix mention of the case tomorrow before the same sessions court judge to get clarification from the welfare officer on the type of community services available, and choose one that is appropriate, in the circumstances of this case,” said Mohamad Zabidin.
On June 26, Mohamad Syafiq pleaded guilty to robbing student Muhammad Fitri Muhammad Zanzuri, 16, of his identity card and handphone.
During the robbery, he was armed with a knife. He committed the offence with another youth still at large, near the Cheras football stadium about 1.30am, on Nov 16, last year.
In his judgement on the whipping, Mohamad Zabidin said there was nothing illegal in imposing the sentence, as long as the lower court judge did not intend to carry out the caning himself.
“The sessions court is empowered to impose such sentence but he is not allowed to carry out the caning himself,” he added. He referred to Section 293 of the Criminal Procedure Code which did not state who should execute the sentence of whipping on the offender.
“Specifically, it does not state that the judge may delegate upon himself, the responsibility of executing the sentence,” noted Mohamad Zabidin.
In this case, Mohamad Zabidin said a question arose as to who was supposed to carry out the caning, where Section 293 expressly provided for the canning to be done in the court premises.
He said that under Rules 132 of the Prison Regulation, it was clearly stated that any punishment imposed on a prisoner must be carried out by the prison authorities.
Most importantly, this rule did not provide for the (prison) officer in charge or the person appointed, to carry out the whipping outside the prison, said Mohamad Zabidin.
He said that submissions from counsel Nik Mohamed Ikhwan representing Muhamad Syafiq, and the Bar Council’s counsels acting as amicus curiae, Datuk N. Sivananthan and Edmund Bon Tai Soon, indicated they were of the view that community service was appropriate. – Bernama
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Wanted to be a hero is it?
We've got VK Lingam and Partners to do that, Zainal Abidin. You just make sure you deliver so that your pension is not affected.