Contempt proceedings require strict adherence to procedural rules; failure to issue proper notice invalidates the application for contempt.

Ahmad Nasfy Yasin JCA:

Introduction

[1] The appeal raises a short but no less important point of procedure. It has to do with the law of contempt, more particularly that relating to the administration of justice generally. It began, in short, as follows.

[2] The Appellant gave an interview with the media. He made certain statements. Given the issues that have been raised at the High Court and before us, which will be dealt with below, it is unnecessary at this juncture to refer to the specific statements that he was alleged to have made. For that, we must wait for the substantive contempt proceeding. Suffice at this moment to say that the Attorney General took umbrage to that statements. The statements according to the Attorney General were calculated to bring disrepute to the administration of justice. Hence, they are contemptuous and must accordingly attract sanction.

Contempt And Committal Proceeding

"The power, which the Courts in Westminster Hall have of vindicating their own authority, is coeval with their first foundation and institution; it is a necessary incident to every Court of Justice, whether of record or not, to fine arid imprison for a contempt to the Court, acted in the face of it.... And the issuing of attachments by the Supreme Courts of Justice in Westminster Hall, for contempts out of Court, stands upon the same immemorial usage as supports the whole fabrick of the common law;....... I have examined very carefully to see if I could find out any vestiges or traces of its introduction, but can find none. It is as ancient as any other part of the common law; there is no priority or posteriority to he discovered about it, and therefore cannot be said to invade the common law, but to act in an alliance and friendly conjunction with every other provision which the wisdom of our ancestors has established for the general good of society."

[4] Although that decision was criticised by many, as being some sort of heresy, captured in that illuminating article by Professor Hay, Contempt by Scandalizing the Court: a political history of the first hundred years (1987) 25 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 431 referred to in Dhooharika, supra, that form of contempt has been part of the common law.

[5] Fast forward and post-independence the power to punish for contempt is to be found in art 126 of the Federal Constitution which reads:

Power to punish for contempt

"126. The Federal Court, the Court of Appeal or a High Court shall have power to punish any contempt of itself."

[6] Section 13 of the of Judicature Act 1964 also repeats the same when it enacts that:

"Contempt 13. The Federal Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court shall have power to punish any contempt of itself."

[7] It is to be noted that the framers of the Constitution had anticipated that that the concept of contempt may somewhat be connected with the right to free speech. Article 10 of the Federal Constitution provides that Parliament may limit the right of free speech or freedom of speech by enacting law dealing with contempt. This is how the provisions reads:

"(2) Parliament may by law impose

(a) on the rights conferred by para (a) of cl (1), such restrictions as it deems necessary or ex