THE

LAW ON JUDICIAL NOTICE

 OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION
v INTRODUCTION

v DOCTRINE OF JUDICIAL NOTICE

v THE LAW ON JUDICIAL NOTICE IN
MALAYSIA
v CONCLUSION
 INTRODUCTION
•  Law of evidence is designed to ensure the accuracy of evidence presented at trial thus
each point must be properly and legally presented and proved.

•  Evidence must generally prove all facts in issue or relevant facts as under Section 5 - 55
of the Evidence Act 1950 clearly states. Therefore, court cannot act on material which
the opponent had not the opportunity of rebutting or qualifying.

•  Nevertheless under some circumstances a substitute for evidence may be allowed

such as certain facts are beyond serious dispute, so notorious, or of such common
knowledge that they require no proof and are open to no evidence in rebuttal.

•  In criminal and civil proceedings, a court may take judicial notice of such facts and
direct the tribunal of fact to treat it as established notwithstanding the absence of
proof by evidence - Roper v Taylor’s Central Garages

•  In short, these facts of which a judge may take judicial notice must be as notorious as
not subject to reasonable dispute, or those facts are readily verifiable to an
indisputable accurate source, or authoritatively attested.
 DOCTRINE OF JUDICIAL NOTICE
•  Doctrine of the judicial notice owes its force to
the two Latin maxims :

a)  “Lex non requirit verificare quod apparet curiae”
which means the law does not require proof of what
is apparent to the court

b)  and “quad constat curiae opera testium non
indigent” which means that which is established to
the court does not require the assistance of
witnesses
•  Under common law doctrine as Per Isaas J in Holland v. Jones
said :

“whenever a fact is so generally known that every ordinary
person may be reasonably presumed to be aware of it, the
court 'notices' it, either simplicter or if it is at once satisfied of
the fact without more, or after such information and
investigation as it considers reliable and necessary in order to
eliminate any reasonable doubt”

•  Lord Sumner in Commonwealth Shipping Representative v. P
and Oriental Branch Services said:

“Judicial notice refers to facts which a judge can be called upon

to receive act to act upon either from his general knowledge of
them, or from inquiries to be made by himself for his own
information from sources to which it is proper for him to refer”
•  Usually the use of judicial notice at trial developed as
a matter of common sense and convenience. The
opportunity to save time, work, and money made
judicial notice a valuable resource.

•  John Wigmore – stated the purpose for judicial
notice was to reduce the amount of evidence subject
to proof as a matter of judicial efficiency.

•  Edmund Morgan – stated that judicial notice was
needed to keep the cases before the courts focused
on the real issues because to keep parties from
arguing over matters that were irrelevant or from
presenting evidence which was clearly false.
•  Judicial notice is frequently used for the simplest,
most obvious common sense facts and has been
taken of a very wide range of matters where those
familiar examples are provided by the rulings that it
is unnecessary to call evidence to show that a cats
are kept for domestic purposes.

•  In short, doctrine of judicial notice applied by a court

that allows the court to recognize and accept the
existence of a particular fact or law without
necessity of formal proof in the form of evidence
adduced by one of the parties.

 THE LAW ON
JUDICIAL NOTICE
 MALAYSIA
•  In Malaysia, all evidence must generally prove by facts in issue
or relevant facts as stated under Evidence Act 1950.

•  But there are 2 exceptions to this general principle which are

facts admitted under Section 58 and those facts of which the
Courts takes judicial notice under Section 56 and Section 57.

•  Low Moh & Anor v. PP - Bellamy J succinctly stated that it was

an elementary proposition of law, too frequently overlooked
with resulting confusion and possible injustice, that "cases must
be decided on the evidence and that the evidence must be such
as is relevant and admissible under the Evidence Ordinance,
that is, it must be either from admitted documents or
statement of witnesses or be something of which the court can
take judicial notice.

•  Pembangunan Maha Murni Sdn. Bhd. v. Jururus Ladang
Sdn. Bhd - Syed Agil Barakbah SCJ expressing a similar
sentiment said that "the general rule is that all facts in
issue and relevant facts must be proved by evidence".
"There are" be noted, "however, two classes of facts which
need not be proved, (a) facts judicially noticed (ss. 56 &
57); and (b) facts admitted (s. 58)

•  Tony Pua Kiam Wee v Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Haji
Abdul Razak - Yaacob Md Sam JCA stated the essence
of judicial notice is that there is a dispensation of the
otherwise requirement for proof to be adduced in court to
establish an asserted factual circumstance.
•  Section 56, provides a legislative window through which
the court may decide to judicially take notice of a fact or
matter, for which no further proof needed to be adduced
to establish its existence.

•  Whereas Section 57 (1) enumerates fourteen matters of

which the court is mandatorily obliged to take judicial
notice.

•  Moreover Section 57 (2) stated when dealing on matters

of public history, literature, science or art, the court may
resort for its aid to appropriate books or documents of
reference in granting judicial notice. Therefore, Section 57
is not exhaustive of the matters which a court may take
judicial notice.

•  There are at least 3 forms of judicial notice can be granted
by the court in Malaysia.

1)  certain facts are so generally known or so notorious as not to

be capable of reasonable dispute [ S. 56 ]

a)  Yong Pak Yong v. PP - court stated what is notorious of what

everybody knows.

b)  PP v. Zulkifli bin Omar - court took judicial notice of the bad behaviour
of Malaysian motorists.

c)  Tony Pua Kiam Wee v Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak
- COA stated the concept requires the court to take judicial notice of a
fact and that fact usually would be a fact that is already rampantly
available in the public domain and it would not be wrong for court
to refer to such fact for its notoriety, for want of a better description
such as the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

2)  court can take account of facts after investigation
even though such facts are not generally known as
long as they can be readily ascertained from readily
available authoritative sources [ S.57 (2) ].

a)  Duff Development Co. v. Government of Kelantan -
recognition the sovereignty of a foreign state.

b)  Pembangunan Maha Murni Sdn. Bhd. v. Jururus Ladang

Sdn. Bhd - judicial notice may be taken of general
customs which have been proved with some frequency.

c)  McQuaker v. Goddard - trial judge consulted books and

experts on whether camels were wild by nature and held
that they were domestic creatures.
3)  Fourteen matters required by statute which the court
is mandatorily obliged to take judicial notice [ S.57 (1) ]

a)  PP v Mohamed Ali - the magistrate was bound to
take judicial notice under s. 57(1)(a) of the Evidence
Ordinance of Legal Notifications which are
regulations having the force of law.

b)  PP v Rajamah - Federal Court held that it was bound

to take judicial notice of a notification of a
Government gazette.

•  A judge may refuse to take the judicial notice when called upon by any
person to take judicial notice of any fact unless and until the person
produces any such book or document to prove those facts. [ S. 57 (3) ]

•  It is also not need to prove for any fact which had been admitted by the
party however based on the discretion of court may require such fact
had been admitted to proved by otherwise but such application only
involved civil proceedings and not criminal proceedings. [ S.58 ]

•  In short, Malaysian courts have taken judicial notice of facts :-

a)  without inquiry which are familiar to any judicial tribunal by their
universal notoriety and with which men of ordinary intelligence are
acquainted;

b)  after inquiry to readily reachable and verifiable works of art, science,
history and etc;

c)  facts mandated to be judicially noticed by statute



 CONCLUSION
•  Judicial notice allows courts to acknowledge a proposition as
conclusive without requiring any party to introduce evidence
of that proposition’s truth.
•  Judicial notices may be permissive or mandatory on the judge
where generally a judicial notice of a fact is permissive; that is,
the judge can decide whether to recognize it or not however a
judicial notice of a legal document is in general mandatory
upon the judge.
•  Rationales of judicial notice is to
a)  avoids disputes about matters that cannot genuinely be disputed,
b)  saving time, labor and expense where the judge when judicially
noticing a fact preempts the need for any evidence;
c)  tends to produce uniformity of decision on matters of fact where
diversity of findings might otherwise result; and
d)  prevents the possibility of a decision which is demonstrably erroneous
or false.