Steve Shim CJ (Sabah & Sarawak):

The Issues

On 8 November 2002, the Shah Alam High Court issued a writ of habeas corpusagainst 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 section 8(1) as unlawful after having concluded that the detention by the police under section 73(1) was unlawful.

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 issu