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High court (Malaysia)

Third-highest courts in the hierarchy of courts in Malaysia

Summary

Third-highest courts in the hierarchy of courts in Malaysia

Field	Value
court_name	High Court of Malaya/
High Court of Sabah and Sarawak
native_name	Mahkamah Tinggi Malaya/
Mahkamah Tinggi Sabah dan Sarawak
image	Coat_of_arms_of_Malaysia.svg
imagesize	100px
established	1957
type	Royal appointment with the advice of the Prime Minister
authority	Federal Constitution
appealsto	Court of Appeals of Malaysia
terms	Compulsory retirement at age 66
positions	Peninsular Malaysia: 60 (including 16 vacancies)
Sabah and Sarawak: 13 (including 5 vacancies)
website
chiefjudgetitle	Chief Judge of the High Court of Malaya
chiefjudgename	Hashim Hamzah
termstart	3 December 2025
chiefjudgetitle2	Chief Judge of the High Court of Sabah and Sarawak
chiefjudgename2	Azizah Nawawi
termstart2	28 July 2025

High Court of Sabah and Sarawak Mahkamah Tinggi Sabah dan Sarawak Sabah and Sarawak: 13 (including 5 vacancies) The high courts in Malaysia are the third-highest courts in the hierarchy of courts, after the Federal Court and the Court of Appeal. Article 121 of the Constitution of Malaysia provides that there shall be two high courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction—the High Court in Malaya and the High Court in Sabah and Sarawak (before 1994, the High Court in Borneo). Before 1969, the High Court in Singapore was also part of the Malaysian courts system (see Law of Singapore).

The High Court in Malaya has its principal registry in Kuala Lumpur, with other registries to be found in all states in Peninsular Malaysia, while the High Court in Sabah and Sarawak has its principal registry in Kuching, with other registries elsewhere in Sabah and Sarawak. There are in total 22 high court registries across all 13 states in Malaysia. The two High Courts also travel on circuit to other smaller towns.

The two high courts, the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court are classified as superior courts, while the magistrates' courts and the sessions courts are classified as the subordinate courts. The high courts function both as a court of original jurisdiction as well as an appellate court, and are each headed by a chief judge (before 1994, chief justice). The chief judges of Malaya and Sabah and Sarawak are the third and fourth highest positions in Malaysian judiciary after the Chief Justice of the Federal Court (before 1994, the Lord President of the Supreme Court) and the President of the Court of Appeal.

High court registries in Malaysia

All high court registries and the subordinate courts found in Peninsular Malaysia including the courts in the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya are under the jurisdiction of the High Court in Malaya. Similarly, all courts found in East Malaysia are under the jurisdiction of the High Court in Sabah and Sarawak including the courts in the Federal Territory of Labuan.

List of chief justices and chief judges

Malaya and Malaysia (on the federation level)

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Malayan Union (1946 – 1948)

1946–1948: Sir Harold Curwen Willan

Chief Justice of the Federation of Malaya (1948 – 1957)

1948–1950: Harold Curwen Willan
1950–1951: Sir Stafford Foster-Sutton
1951–1956: Sir Charles Mathew

Chief Justice of the Federation of Malaya (1957 – 1963)

1957–1963: Tun Sir James Thomson

Lord President of the Federal Court (1963 – 1985)

Main article: Lord President of the Federal Court

1963–1966: Tun Sir James Thomson
1966–1968: Tun Syed Sheh Hassan Barakbah
1966–1974: Tun Mohamed Azmi Mohamed
1974–1982: Tun Mohamed Suffian Mohamed Hashim
1982–1984: Raja Tun Azlan Shah
1984–1985: Tun Salleh Abas

Lord President of the Supreme Court (1985 – 1994)

Main article: Lord President of the Supreme Court

1985–1989: Tun Salleh Abas
1989–1994: Tun Abdul Hamid Omar

States of Malaya (since 1963)

Chief Justice of Malaya (1963 – 1994, after which the designation was changed to Chief Judge of Malaya)

Source:

1963–1966: Syed Sheh Barakbah
1966–1968: Mohamed Azmi Mohamed
1968–1973: Ong Hock Thye
1973–1974: Mohamed Suffian Mohamed Hashim
1974–1979: Sarwan Singh Gill
1979–1982: Raja Azlan Shah (later 34th Sultan of Perak and 9th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia)
1982–1984: Salleh Abas
1984–1989: Abdul Hamid Omar
1989–1992: Hashim Yeop Sani
1992–1994: Gunn Chit Tuan

Some modern texts will refer to them as Chief Judges.

Chief Judge of Malaya (since 1994)

1994: Mohamed Eusoff Chin
1994–1997: Anuar Zainal Abidin
1997–2000: Wan Adnan Ismail
2000–2002: Ahmad Fairuz Abdul Halim
2002–2004: Haidar Mohamed Noor
2004–2006: Siti Norma Yaakob
2007–2008: Alauddin Sheriff
2008–2011: Arifin Zakaria
2011–2017: Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin
2017–2018: Ahmad Maarop
2018–2019: Zaharah Ibrahim
2019–2022: Azahar Mohamed
2023–2024: Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah
2024–2025: Hasnah Mohammed Hashim
2025–present: Hashim Hamzah

Borneo (North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak)

Main article: Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak

North Borneo	Sarawak	Office
Chief Justice of North Borneo
(until 1951)	Charles Frederick Cunningham Macaskie	1934 to 1941	Chief Justice of Sarawak
(1930-1951)	Thomas Jamieson Laycock Stirling Boyd	1930 to 1939
H. Thackwell-Lewis	1939 to 1945
Japanese occupation	1942 to 1945	Japanese occupation	1942 to 1945
Sir Ivor Llewellyn Brace	1945 to 1951	Robert Yorke Hedges	1946 to 1951
Chief Justice of the Combined Judiciary of Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei
(1951–1963)	Sir	Ivor Llewellyn Brace	02009-10-01-031 December 1951 – 02009-10-01-0324 October 1952
Sir	Ernest Hillas Williams
Sir	John Ainley	02009-10-01-035 December 1959 – 02009-10-01-031 January 1963
Sir	William Campbell Wylie	02009-10-01-032 January 1963 – 02009-10-01-0315 September 1963
Chief Justice of Borneo
(1963–1994)	Sir	William Campbell Wylie	02009-10-01-0316 September 1963 – 02009-10-01-0327 August 1965
Sir Tan Sri	Philip Ernest Housden Pike	02009-10-01-0311 September 1965 – 02009-10-01-0327 August 1968
Tan Sri Dato'	Ismail Khan Ibrahim Khan	02009-10-01-032 September 1968 – 02009-10-01-0331 December 1973
Tan Sri Datuk Amar	Lee Hun Hoe	02009-10-01-031 January 1974 – 02009-10-01-0331 December 1988
Tan Sri Datuk Amar	Mohamad Jemuri Serjan	02009-10-01-0311 March 1989 – 02009-10-01-0323 June 1994
Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak
(since 1994)	Tan Sri Datuk Amar	Mohamad Jemuri Serjan	02009-10-01-0324 June 1994 – 02009-10-01-039 September 1994
Tan Sri Datuk Amar	Chong Siew Fai	02009-10-01-0316 June 1995 – 02009-10-01-033 July 2000
Tan Sri Datuk Amar	Steve Shim Lip Kiong	02009-10-01-032 July 2000 – 02009-10-01-0325 July 2006
Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima	Richard Malanjum	02009-10-01-0326 July 2006 – 02009-10-01-0311 July 2018
Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima	David Wong Dak Wah	02009-10-01-0311 July 2018 – 02009-10-01-0319 February 2020
Tan Sri Datuk Amar	Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim	02009-10-01-0325 February 2020 – 02009-10-01-0317 January 2023
Dato'	Abdul Rahman Sebli	02009-10-01-0317 January 2023 – 25 July 202502009-10-01-03
	Azizah Nawawi	28 July 2025 – Incumbent

Singapore

Main article: Chief Justice of Singapore

Office	Title	Justice	Tenure
Chief Justice of Singapore
(1963–1969 (as part of Malaysia, 1963–1965))	Tan Sri	Wee Chong Jin	1963 to 1969

References

"List of court addresses". Judiciary of Malaysia.
"Operation of the court". Judiciary of Malaysia.
(12 June 1947). "Supplement to the London Gazette, 12 June, 1947".
(11 February 2010). "Assessing the Racial Composition of the Malaysian Judiciary | LoyarBurok".
(2015) p.107, The Malaysian Judiciary Yearbook 2015, http://www.kehakiman.gov.my/sites/default/files/YearBook2015.pdf {{Webarchive. link. (26 April 2020)

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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