Court rules govt cannot issue conflicting detention order against farm worker

The home ministry’s advisory board acted beyond its legal powers when it recommended that a farm worker’s preventive detention order be both continued and suspended, the High Court in Muar has ruled.

Judicial Commissioner S Kalyana Kumar said the Dangerous Drugs (Special Preventive Measures) Act 1985 provided for three distinct recommendations by the board: that a detention order be continued, suspended or revoked.

He said the board could not combine two different outcomes by recommending that the order be “continued and suspended”.

“It is therefore apparent that the advisory board acted ultra vires its powers by recommending that the applicant’s detention order be both continued and suspended,” he said in his grounds of judgment.

The ruling now allows Nor Qusyairee Norazrul Faiz to challenge his detention at the Simpang Renggam Moral Rehabilitation Centre in Johor.

The judge said the authorities had also failed to satisfactorily explain the meaning of the board’s recommendation and how it related to the subsequent suspension of the detention order.

Kalyana also found that the authorities had denied the 25-year-old applicant access to a record of his testimony during an inquiry conducted by the ministry’s inquiry officer.

The officer had acknowledged that the applicant’s answers, recorded during a question-and-answer session, were incorporated into a report submitted to the deputy minister.

However, Nor Qusyairee’s request for a copy of the record was rejected on the grounds that the report was confidential.

The judge said the authorities could have provided the relevant portions of the applicant’s answers while redacting sensitive information.

He ruled that withholding the evidence denied the applicant an important procedural safeguard in challenging his detention.

The judge added that revoking the suspension of the detention order did not cure defects in the original detention process, even if the applicant had breached the conditions imposed on his release.

He ordered that the applicant be released immediately unless he was subject to another lawful detention order.

Jayarubbiny Jayaraj represented the applicant, while senior federal counsel Khairulhazman Ghazali appeared for the respondents.