The language of court documents must facilitate justice, and dismissal for non-compliance requires proof of substantial miscarriage of justice.

[1] The Appellant Wong Leh Yin ("Appellant") appealed against the dismissal of his preliminary objection that the Petition of Appeal of the Public Prosecutor dated 17 June 2011 was written in Bahasa Malaysia and therefore defective and to be disregarded.

[2] The objection was based on art 161(2)(b) of the Federal Constitution and Point 2C of the 20-Point Malaysia Agreement which provides for the use of the English Language in Sarawak.

[3] It was submitted before us that the Petition of Appeal filed before the High COURT in Sibu, not being in the English Language, was bad in law and inadmissible, with the consequence that there was no valid Petition of Appeal filed before the High COURT within 14 days after the grounds of decision of the Sessions COURT, Sibu, was served upon the Public Prosecutor, contrary to s 307(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code and, under s 307(9) thereof, deemed to have lapsed or been withdrawn.

[4] After hearing the submissions for the parties, we dismissed the appeal. Our reasons are as follows.

[5] Article 161 of the Federal Constitution is in Part XIIA pertaining to Additional Protections for States of Sabah and Sarawak provides:

"(1) No Act of Parliament terminating or restricting the use of the English language or for any of the purposes mentioned in Cls (2) to (5) of Article 152 shall come into operations as regards the use of the English language in any case mentioned in Cl (2) of this Article until ten years after Malaysia Day.

(2) Clause (1) applies:-

(a) to the use of the English language in either House of Parliament by a member for or from the State of Sabah or Sarawak; and

(b) to the use of the English language for proceedings in the High COURT in Sabah and Sarawak or in a subordinate COURT in the State of Sabah or Sarawak, or for such proceedings in the Federal COURT or the COURT of Appeal as are mentioned in Cl (4); and

(c) to the use of the English language in the State of Sabah or Sarawak in the Legislative Assembly or for other official purposes (including the official purposes of the Federal Government). "

[6] We make three observations.

[7] Firstly, Cl 2(b) is the basis for the instant appeal. For the purpose of clarity, the term proceeding is defined in s 3 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1967 as meaning any proceeding whatsoever of a civil or criminal nature and includes an application at any stage of a proceeding.

[8] Secondly, Cl (1) makes it abundantly clear that it prohibits any Act of Parliament terminating or restricting the use of the English Language for any of those purposes mentioned in Cls (2) to (5).

[9] Thirdly, Cl (1) applied for 10 years from Malaysia Day.

[10] Hence, the preliminary objection insofar as it is based on art 161 Cl (2)(b), is flawed.

[11] Section 2 of the National Language Acts 1963/67 (Revised 1971) Act 32 provides that:

"Save as provided in this Act and subject to the safeguards contained in art 152 (1) of the Constitution relating to any other language and the language of any other community in Malaysia the national language shall be used for official purposes."

[12] But, since (a) s 1(2) thereof provides that the Act shall come into force in the States of Sabah and Sarawak on such dates as the respective State Authorities may by enactments of the Legislatures of the respective States appoint and different dates may be appointed for the coming into force of different provisions of the Act in those States, and (b) no such dates has been appo