Vincent Ng JC:

[1] The applicant seeks redress in this Court for what he alleges to be illegal restraint of his person and unlawful deprivation of his liberty by way of this application for a writ of habeas corpus.

[2] On 11 March 1993 midstream through the submission of Mr V Shanmugam the Counsel for the applicant in Criminal Application No 44-29-92, he applied for the five other applications for writ of habeas corpus namely cases No 2 to No 6 above be heard together as he had also agreed to confine himself to only one common issue in all the six criminal applications wherein he was also the common Counsel. In C.a 44- 29-92 Counsel had submitted on various grounds but later abandoned them and it is, therefore, not necessary to refer or deal with these.

[3] The sole issue being that the various affidavits in reply filed by the respondents in the above six respective applications (respondent's affidavits) were defective and were therefore inadmissible for the Court's consideration and afforded no answer to the applications. Counsel expressly agreed to stand or fall on this ground alone in all the six applications and requested for time to conduct further research for an extensive submission. Senior Federal Counsel Encik Noorbahari agreed to the above suggestion by Counsel.

[4] The substantive argument on the grounds of the six above applications commenced only on 16 April 1993. It was submitted that the respective affidavits were defective for one or two of the following reasons:

(i) In all the six applications the words "akui" or "diakui" were used in the jurats of the respective affidavits [defect (i)].

(ii) The respondents' affidavits, namely Encl 16 in criminal application number 44-29-92 was not signed by the deponent and Encl 20 in Criminal App No 44-33-92 was not signed by the Commissioner of Oaths; [defect (ii)].

(iii) In criminal application number 44-33-92 (see encl 7 and 27), Cr Application No 44-39- 91 (see Encl 19) and Cr Application No 44-89- 92 (see encl 10) the respondents' affidavits ended at a page and the jurat began on a following page or the page bearing the jurat did not contain a substantial averment or spill-over of part of the last substantial averment in the affidavits (defect (iii)].

On Defect (i)

[5] In essence, an affidavit is a statement in writing, made on oath or affirmation. The administration of oath or affirmation is, thus, an essential requirement of an affidavit, in order that there may follow several legal consequences if the obligation to tell the truth is broken. Affirmation is a substitute for an oath in the case of certain religionists who object, on grounds of conscience, to take an oath; it being still a solemn affirmation and entailing the same legal consequences for lying.

[6] Affidavits are governed by Rules of the High 1980 made by the Rules Committee set up under the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 and Statutory Declarations are governed by the Statutory Declarations Act 1960.

[7] In all the respondents' affidavits "diakui" or "diperakui" were used in the jurat. And, according to the dictionaries that are accepted as authoritative, the words "diakui" and "diperakui" is derivative of the word "mengakui" which means "declare or admit", and the words "to affirm" means "mengesahkan" in Kamus Dwibahasa 1979 (Edn) by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Thus, such terms bear looser meaning and usage.

[8] A looser term such as "diakui" or diperakui" may be permissible expressions for use in Statutory Declarations, indeed it is incorporated under the schedule (s 2) "Borang Akuan" of the Statutory Declarations Act 1960. The reason being that all Statutory Declarations are required to end with the vital phrase "... this solemn declaration conscientiously believing the same to be true and by virtue of the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Act 1960". This vital phrase is necessary to give the sanction of the Enactment to the declaration. It was held in Velumailum v. Public Prosecutor, [1947] 1 MLJ 1