Search

The purpose of this paper is to determine if the law currently in force is ineffective and thus contributes to the occurrence of forest offences. The paper analyses the punishments under the National Forestry Act 1984 based on the perceptions of related stakeholders on the effectiveness of those punishments in addressing illegal logging and other forest offences. A questionnaire was utilized to obtain responses from 240 purposively selected stakeholders. The collected data were analysed in the context of measures of central tendency to identify the extent to which the respondents agreed with the stated items. The results demonstrate that the law was generally perceived to be acceptable. The findings also identified compensation payment based on the value of tree or wood as the most significant item, while longer imprisonment term was rated as the least significant item

Custody decisions are tailored to the circumstances of each case based on related principles with the protection of child welfare as the courts’ paramount consideration. This paper sought to understand custody issues from the quantitative viewpoint through a conceptual model and examined how child custody principles have influenced loss decisions for mothers. The methodology used was content analysis and the Chi-Square correlation, with usable data provided by 47 cases decided in Malaysia between 1987 and 2017 based on Act 303. A coding instrument and a conceptual framework were developed with items covering the presumption of maternal custody, custodian qualification and loss of rights, and the child’s and the mother’s wishes. The findings revealed that mothers were less likely to lose custody cases, and when they did, their defeats were strongly influenced by factors related to children’s preferences and the status quo arrangement. The results contribute to an understanding of how mothers can lose custody of their children, and clarify whether some of the independent variables are used more regularly and are more predictive of the loss decisions than the others

Child visitation can facilitate the continued involvement of both parents in their children’s lives after a divorce. This study aims to examine the issue of visitation rights and report the results of an analysis of relevant court cases involving Malaysian Muslim families. It describes the structure or type of visitation awarded to non-custodial parents as a result of their loss of child custody. Content analysis technique was applied to elaborate on the reported court cases. A cross tabulation method was also performed to describe the frequency of cases for the respective types of visitation. This study has revealed several details about visitation rights hidden in the masses of case law. These include granted visitation rights which comprise scheduled, reasonable and dual-form visitation, counting omission of access rights which occurred most frequently including cases where parties received legal representation. The study has contributed towards a greater understanding of how visitation orders are made in practice through a quantitative analysis of past court decisions.