On 24 January 2022, the High Court of Malaya ruled that a “prima facie” case had been established against Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia (DPM).
So what is a “prima facie” case? This is (very) a brief explanation.
Cambridge Dictionary defines “prima facie” as:
“adjective, based on what seems to be the truth when first seen or heard”
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prima-facie
Whereas the legal provision relevant to the present case is Section 180 of the Malaysian Criminal Procedure Code:
“180. Procedure after conclusion of case for prosecution
(1) When the case for the prosecution is concluded, the Court shall consider whether the prosecution has made out a prima facie case against the accused.
(2) If the Court finds that the prosecution has not made out a prima facie case against the accused, the Court shall record an order of acquittal.
(3) If the Court finds that a prima facie case has been made out against the accused on the offence charged the Court shall call upon the accused to enter on his defence.”
The Federal Court in Balachandran v Public Prosecutor [2005] 2 MLJ 301 shed further light on the matter when it eruditely held at page 315:
“[21] … A prima facie case is therefore one that is sufficient for the accused to be called upon to answer. This in turn means that the evidence adduced must be such that it can be overthrown only by evidence in rebuttal. The phrase ‘prima facie case’ is defined in similar terms in Mozley and Whiteley’s Law Dictionary 11 th Ed as:
A litigating party is said to have a prima facie case when the evidence in his favour is sufficiently strong for his opponent to be called on to answer it. A prima facie case, then, is one which is established by sufficient evidence, and can be overthrown only by rebutting evidence adduced by the other side.
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[22] … The test at the close of the case for the prosecution would therefore be: Is the evidence sufficient to convict the accused if he elects to remain silent? If the answer is in the affirmative then a prima facie case has been made out. This must, as of necessity, require a consideration of the existence of any reasonable doubt in the case for the prosecution. If there is any such doubt there can be no prima facie case.”
- If you are interested to read the full judgment in Balachandran v PP, you may download the case here.
As you could see, a criminal trial proceedings is actually a 2 steps process.
Firstly, the prosecution team needed to prove their case against the accused by calling witnesses or adducing documentary evidence and at the end of the prosecution’s the Judge would need to asked himself/herself whether a prima facie case had been established against the accused (as required by Section 180 of the Criminal Procedure Code).
If the learned Judge was satisfied (after undergoing the logical deduction similar to those provided in Balachandran v PP above) that a prima facie case had indeed been established against the accused as in the case Zahid Hamidi herein. The Court would go into the second part of the proceeding by calling the accused to “enter his defence” ie for the accused to produce his own evidence to rebut the prosecution’s case.
This is the status of the Zahid Hamidi’s case at the moment (as at 24 January 2022).
It is by no means concluded as the former DPM is now afforded the fullest opportunity to rebut and resist the prosecution’s case.
Credit: The feature image used in this article is attributed to BFM News.
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