A High Court recently ordered the Malaysian government to make public the investigation report on a plane crash accident in 1976 that killed 11 people. In granting the mandamus order, the court recognised that although not expressly provided for in the Federal Constitution, freedom of information (“FOI”) necessarily flows from the free speech clause in the constitution. While the court’s decision in acknowledging the existence of FOI in Malaysia is welcomed, this note argues that the implication of this decision seems minimal in advancing FOI in Malaysia. It is, therefore, suggested that an FOI legislative framework together with a consistent recognition, especially by the higher courts, of FOI in Malaysia would provide more systematic access to official information.

It is an oft-repeated truism that damages are compensatory. Errant doctrines which recognise the possibility of monetary recovery in excess of loss, such as punitive damages, are marginalised as anomalies. Others, such as negotiating damages, are uncomfortably shoehorned into the Procrustean bed of compensation. Cost-of-cure damages have likewise become a casualty of the law’s apparent fixation on compensation. Despite suggestions to the contrary, these damages are often treated as simply one measure of loss. That approach has thrown up difficult questions about the dual roles of the claimant’s intention to effect cure and the reasonableness of curing. In Terrenus Energy SL2 Pre Ltd v Attika Interior + MEP Pte Ltd [2025] SGHC(A) 4, the Appellate Division of the High Court was called on to revisit these questions, which had previously been confronted in JSD Corporation Pte Ltd v Tri-Line Express Pte Ltd [2022] SGHC 227.