ABSTRACT
As noted earlier, the Parliament and the state legislatures have separate jurisdictions in Malaysia. Details of their respective jurisdictions are found in three lists attached to the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution. The three lists are Federal List, State List and Concurrent List. The Parliament can legislate only on matters enumerated in the Federal List or in the Concurrent List.1 Similarly, state legislatures can only legislate on matters spelled out in the State List or in the Concurrent List.2 In the event of any conflict between federal and state law enacted over a subject on which both the federal and the state legislatures have jurisdiction, then the federal law would prevail and the state law, to the extent of the inconsistency, would be void.3
