Malaysia

COUNTRY

Country's Death Penalty Landscape: On 4 July 2025, Malaysia abolished the mandatory death penalty when the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023 (Act 846) came into effect. The Act repealed the mandatory death penalty and introduced, as alternatives, sentences to imprisonment of 30 or up to 40 years and whipping and 12 strokes of whipping (for males under 50). In addition, the Revision of the Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporary Jurisdiction of The Federal Court) Act 2023 (Act 847), which came into effect on 12 September 2023, gave special jurisdiction to the Federal Court to resentence people under sentence of death who had already exhausted their ordinary judicial proceedings.

Country's Key Death Penalty Trends: One of the key trends in death penalty landscape point towards drug offences. Under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, drug trafficking is the primary offence for which death sentences are handed out in Malaysia. A high number of foreign nationals are convicted under the Act. The death penalty remains a sentencing option for drug trafficking under the Act, though it is no longer mandatory.

Country Geolocation

Latitude: 4.2105

Longitude: 101.9758

Contributing Organisations

Kind of Cases Contributed: In Malaysian courts, a measure of lack of transparency has been seen in the resentencing cases, where by judiciary has not issued a proper judgments. The implication for this database is that we will not find a proper judgment in case briefs. Also, wherever 'Legal Aid' has been marked as 'No Label' inside the database, it means that we cannot make a case of whether and how effective defence may have played out in these cases. Legal aid in Malaysia means you are receiving a court appointed lawyer against no payment. Aid by MCCHR is not accounted for as all these cases are being supported by MCCHR, regardless of legal aid received in other contexts.

Credibility of Contributing Organisation: The Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights (MCCHR) is a not-for-profit organisation established in March 2011 with the mission of providing an integrated approach to the promotion and protection of human rights and democracy in Malaysia. Our work centres on three core programmes: civic education, strategic litigation, and law & policy reform.

We are among the few strategic litigation training providers in Malaysia, which has culminated in important outputs like strategic litigation manual, resources. Beyond the cases, MCCHR provide other relevant resources in this space.

Supporting files