Here are some of the online databases and website that I find useful for doing legal research. Some of them required paid subscription to access but you probably can access it through your university library’s subscription if you are a law student.
LexisNexis is one of the databases that I frequently used during my studies. The advantage of this database is that when you search for an authority, the case analysis is very useful as the hyperlinks to the case referred are provided and subsequent cases that referred to that authority are also available with treatment indication. You can also find cases with similar ratio decidendi (reasoning) of the case you searched.
The main sources and tools available are:
Malayan Law Journal (MLJ)
Industrial Law Journal
Singapore Law Report (SLR)
All English Report (ALL ER)
Commonwealth Cases
UK Cases and Legislation
Legal Articles & Journals
Annotated Statutes of Malaysia
Dictionary for Word, Phrases and Maxims
This is also a neat database for doing legal research. The advantage of this database is that when you search for a particular section of an Act, you can view a list of all cases that referred to the particular section. It is also easy to trace the history of a particular case as the hyperlink is provided.
The main sources and tools available are:
Current Law Journal (CLJ) and Supplement series (CLJSupp/MTC/BLJ)
Legal Network Series (LNS)
Road Traffic Module (CLJ/BLJ/SMC/LNS1, LNS5) – cases related to road traffic offence accidents and personal injury
Principal Legislation
Subsidiary Legislation
State Enactments
Legal Articles
Dictionary for Word, Phrases and Maxims
Translator for terms in English to Malay and vice versa
Besides the above databases, you may also search from this database for articles for your legal research. It might be useful when you are doing research on subjects like international law, international trade and shipping law.
The main sources available are:
Selected cases from All Malaysia Reports (AMR)
Common law cases
UK legislation
Legal Articles
I usually use this database to search for articles. It will useful when you are doing research on subjects like international law or jurisprudence.
The main source available is:
International resources for articles and journals
Beside the abovementioned databases, Google Scholar is a search engine for searching scholarly literature like academic journals, articles and books. It is incredibly useful for doing research on subject like jurisprudence.
This is the grounds of judgments made available by the office of the Chief Registrar, Federal Court of Malaysia. This website is publicly accessible. Currently there are more than 7,200 judgments available. Only judgment from the year 2017 are available. Please note that the name of parties cannot be used to search for a judgment. You will need to search using keywords, date of judgment, case number or the name of judge.
There are more than 12,300 judgments available on the Sabah Law Society. This website is publicly accessible.
If you need a copy of any principal or subsidiary legislation, you can download it from the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC). The Malay version for some legislation is available here. This website is publicly accessible.
This database contains an online collection of the authoritative text of the Laws of Malaysia. Principal and subsidiary legislation can be accessed here. Selected legislation in Malay is available. However, the complete version of legislation is not available for download. You can also access to the online version of the Gazette printed by Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Berhad (PNMB), the official printer appointed by the Government of Malaysia. Lawnet can be accessed free through u-PUSTAKA portal. For more information, you can visit their official portal here.
The main sources and tools available are:
Principal Legislation
Subsidiary Legislation
Federal Gazettes
State Gazettes
State Enactments
Latin Dictionary
Translator for terms in English to Malay and vice versa
This is the website to go if you need any information relating to the Parliament. This website is publicly accessible. You can find information regarding the Parliamentary procedure and the status of the bills presented in Parliament. You can access to the Hansard, oral answers, written answers and answers for minister’s question time. You may need to refer to these documents if you are doing a research on a particular Act of Parliament. For example, to find out the intention of the parliament when enacting a particular Act of Parliament. The Hansard is the official record of the Parliament proceedings which includes the debates and statements made by our elected representatives, including our Members of Parliament.
I going off topic here to share a fun fact. The Hansard also enable us to know how our elected representatives performed in Parliament. Most of the time there is nothing interesting in the Hansard but the quarrels happened during Parliament proceedings are also recorded. For instance, the parliament proceeding on 7 August 2018 (A clip of the quarrel is available online). Attached below is page 41 of the Hansard professionally reported by the Parliament’s Officer.
Hence, we should vote for someone capable to represent us into the parliament so that more constructive debates can take place in the Parliament. Here is an analysis on the Parliament proceeding took place from 7 October to 5 December in 2019 published by the Star if you are interested.