Steve LK Shim CJSS:

The Issues

[1] On 8 November 2002, the Shah Alam High Court issued a writ of habeas corpus against the respondent ordering his release from a s 8 ministerial detention order. Dissatisfied, the appellants have appealed against that order. The notice of appeal filed on 9 November 2002 is signed by the attorney-general. The petition of appeal is dated 23 December 2002. Although the appellants, in their petition, have propagated 9 grounds, they have decided, not without some relief on our part, to proceed only on one ground. Still, it covers a wide berth and it states:

That the learned judge had erred in law when he had misdirected himself in deciding that the Minister's order of detention under s 8(1) as unlawful after having concluded that the detention by the police under s 73(1) was unlawful.

[2] Possibly because of its generality counsel for the appellants has advanced a number of what he calls reasons in support which are in reality more in the nature of propositions and they can, I think, be effectively compressed into two. They are:

(1) that the learned judge had no jurisdiction to hear the complaint against the detention order issued by the Minister unde