HISTORY OF THE INDUSTRIAL COURT MALAYSIA

From the trackable record, the Industrial Court Malaysia was once placed in the Kwong Yik Bank building at Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur around the 1970s, helmed by the then President, Mr M. Abraham.

Around 1977, the Court was relocated to these wooden Selangor State buildings at Jalan Duta, Kuala Lumpur, where it operated for approximately 10 to 15 years. 

Due to the change of the Government in the 1990s, the Industrial Court was relocated yet again to Wisma Straits Building.

In 2018, the Industrial Court found its new home at Wisma PERKESO, Jalan Tun Razak where it remains until present.

Number of Courts to date

There were less than 10 courts operating during the inception of the Industrial Court of Malaysia. In 2008, the Terengganu branch of the Industrial Court of Malaysia was established. However, the Terengganu Court ceased its operations in 2009 due to the low number of East Coast case referrals. The total number of courtrooms however had increased gradually over time. There are now a total of 22 courts that had been established, wherein 16 courts are situated in Kuala Lumpur, 2 courts in Penang and 1 court each in Johor, Sabah and Sarawak which operate individually under the supervision of the President of the Industrial Court of Malaysia.

Proceedings of the Court

Initially, hearings were conducted via audio recordings to record the proceedings and verbatim notes were taken by the Chairman through manual handwriting around the 1970s. The incorporation of technology and the digitalization of the courts began to take shape in the year 2006 by the setting up of the e-Industrial Court (e-IC) system and the establishment of the Digital Recording System (DRS) in 2014. Manual note-taking technique had been improvised with the aid of digital transcripts generated from the DRS. Proceedings are now recorded in both audio and video form using the DRS system. Manual handwriting is now optional.