| This paper intends to explore some laws, rules of court and practices which restrict access to justice or deny justice or lead to miscarriage of justice using the common law adversary system in the Malaysian civil courts. The topics to be covered are cause of action, statues of limitation, restrictions on right of appeal, abuse of judicial discretion, restrictions arising from rules of pleadings, failures of the adversary system and public policy decisions although there are many more for which there is no space in this paper. The law has often been called an ass and our judges have been called less flattering names by aggrieved litigants. The goddess of justice may be blind but judges should not use that as an excuse for their mistakes to shut their eyes to inconvenient facts. One of the primary functions of the modern state is to maintain public order by regulating the conduct of society through rights and duties according to laws. Disputes are adjudicated by judges in courts of law. This is called “access to justice” under the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. |