Public Interest Immunity in Civil Trials: Comparing the Judicial Views of the English and Malaysian Courts

Abstract

Access to documents is an essential tenet of civil justice. The notion of open justice requires that evidence (which may include documents and information) to be made accessible to the parties involved. Nevertheless, there is an exclusion under the heading of crown privilege or public interest immunity that could deny discovery or disclosure of certain information. Hence, this article seeks to revisit the applicability of the public interest exemption in the British legal scaffold, in the light of the principle of openness and following that, to examine the compatibility of the concept British crown privilege in the Malaysian legal system.