Kerajaan Malaysia & Anor v Aminah binti Ahmad

Appellant(s):

• Kerajaan Malaysia
• Ketua Pengarah Perkhidmatan Awam

Respondent(s): Aminah Binti Ahmad

• YA Dato' Lim Chong Fong
• YA Datuk Azhahari Kamal bin Ramli
• YA Datuk Meor Hashimi bin Abdul Hamid

• The respondent, a retired public servant suing personally and on behalf of 56 other pensioners, had earlier obtained a declaration from the Court of Appeal (affirmed by the Federal Court) that the 2013 amendments to the Pension Adjustment Act 1980 were unconstitutional, restoring the pre-amendment pension adjustment formula, but that declaration was expressly made to take effect only prospectively from 13 January 2022, and the courts had declined to order retrospective adjustment or arrears as no actual loss had been proven.
• After the Director General refused to backdate pension adjustments or recognise certain salary circulars (Pekeliling Perkhidmatan) as salary revisions, the respondent filed a fresh judicial review application seeking a mandamus order to compel pension adjustment under the pre-2013 formula and payment of arrears.
• The High Court allowed the judicial review application, holding it was not barred by res judicata since mandamus had not been an issue in the earlier proceedings, and ordered adjustment based on one salary circular (Pekeliling Bil. 1/2016) together with back-dated payments from January 2022.
• The Government and the Director General appealed, arguing the judicial review application was barred by res judicata, issue estoppel, and/or was an abuse of process.

• Whether the judicial review application (seeking mandamus and arrears) was barred by res judicata or issue estoppel, given the earlier originating summons proceedings between the same parties on largely the same subject matter.
• Whether, independent of res judicata, the judicial review application constituted an abuse of the court's process by seeking to relitigate an issue (entitlement to arrears/pension adjustment) that could and should have been raised in the earlier proceedings.
• Whether the prospective-only effect of the earlier Court of Appeal declaration (unappealed to the Federal Court) precluded any claim for retrospective pension adjustment or arrears.

• The Court held that the High Court erred in law by considering only res judicata (concluding it did not apply because mandamus was not previously raised) without also considering the separate and distinct doctrine of abuse of process, which the Federal Court has held must be considered even where technical res judicata does not strictly apply.
• The Court found that the issue of entitlement to arrears and pension adjustment (including reliance on service circulars such as Pekeliling Bil. 1/2016) properly belonged to the earlier originating summons proceedings and should have been raised then; the respondent's failure to do so, and failure to appeal the earlier finding of no proven loss, rendered the fresh judicial review application both barred by issue estoppel and an abuse of process.
• The appeal was allowed, the High Court's decision was set aside, and the Court clarified that its ruling, given its public interest dimension, technically binds only the respondent and the 56 pensioners named in these proceedings due to how the application was framed; no order as to costs was made.