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International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

Breach of Contract: Filing Small Claims at the Magistrate Court in Malaysia

Farihana Abdul Razak, Nor Hidayati Abdullah, Amylia Fuziana Azmi, Nor Laila Ahmad, Afidah Osoman

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v9-i12/6675

Open access

Small-claim courts were established to assist ordinary people easily and affordably settle small claims and were intended to be fairly proceeding. In Malaysia, each claim in this proceeding is limited to the value of MYR5000 and lawyers may not represent neither the plaintiff nor the defendant. Although the small-claim court made it easy for ordinary people to file their claims, it was not popular as magistrates in the ordinary courts still heard cases that did not appear to be friendly to the layman. The objective of this study is to investigate the legal discussion of small claim proceeding in a Magistrate Court and the kinds of recovery of debts in breach of contract that could be brought before the trial. To achieve the aim of this paper, a doctrinal legal research methodology is used by adopting a library-based research through conceptual analysis as well as content analysis. This paper obtained secondary data of the primary sources from Contracts Act 1950, Rules of Court 2012 and a case study involving small claim proceeding in Magistrate Court of Tapah, Perak. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to a body of knowledge in understanding the process of recovery of debts below MYR5000 by mechanism of small claim proceeding in a Magistrate Court in Malaysia.