Contractual justice in Asean: a comparative view of coercion

• Main Author: Shaik Mohd. Hussain, Shaik Md. Noor Alam
• Format: Inaugural Lecture
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/1109/1/LG_173_S45_S981_no.59.pdf; http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/1109/

The European legal system which provided Indonesia, Thailand and partly Philippines with much of their ground rules in contract has witnessed a new and rapidly increasing awareness of the need for justice in contract. Hence, countries sharing the same European legal tradition are well placed to embark on a similar path towards contractual justice. British legal tradition, of which Malaysia is a part, places an undue and unfortunately illusory emphasis on freedom of contract. Free and voluntary consent must be looked at as a mechanism to achieve contractual justice not contractual freedom. An examination of coercion in several ASEAN jurisdictions will reveal the need for this distinction .