Ultimately, the value of a title depends on who receives it. Even when it awarded as a right. The Chief Justice becomes a Tun as a right of his office. But one, the late Tun Suffian, honours the award, while Tun Eusoff Chin, devalued it. Curiously, the difference between the two men reflects also the crisis in the Malaysian judiciary: the one so proper that he would not be seen with any one under any circumstances if he has to sit in a case involving him, the other so cavalier about justice that he sees no wrong in going on holidays with lawyers and business men who have cases before him. Ultimately, even the awards are devalued because society is.

In one high profile case, the lawyer for the crony shortchanged the judicial process by shortcircuiting the legal process by helpfully writing the judgement for the judge giving his client what he sought. The lawyer to make sure nothing is left to chance, took the Chief Justice and the attorney-general on holidays, denied it until evidence in the form of photographs was produced. There is this arrogant worldview in Malaysia that if a crony or government functionary sued for defamation, all that needs to be adjudicated is how many millions he should get, not if the suit has any relevance. At its height, even government ministers got into the act. When there is easy money to be got, no one misses a trick. Now it is common for political parties to threaten for defamation and demands hundreds of millions of ringgit. It does not matter if he is a cabinet minister or an opposition leader. Law firms representing the parties in the governing coalition now strengthen their defamation departments.

Tan Sri Mohtar was attorney-general and the government's point man to ensure Dato' Seri Anwar remained in jail. He did not present himself as a neutral prosecutor but appeared, during the trial and after, of a man beholden to the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed's thesis that this man must be destroyed. He was later promoted to the Federal Court and, if the Gods had smiled his way, would have been Chief Justice in due course. He turned out a far better judge than many expected, but the niggling suspicion remained he was where he was for a larger agenda in which politics, not justice, mattered. When the Chief Justice, Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah, dismissed Dato' Seri Anwar's appeal against conviction and sentence in, to a layman, a highly flawed trial, the emotions rose again. But too much was expected of him. As one senior lawyer said: "We expect our judges to be legal eagles soaring away into the sky to cut new paths; but all we have are legal ducks wallowing in a dirty pond afraid to venture out for fear of pelting by the pond owner."

Court of Appeal Judge Gopal Sri Ram and High Court Judge R.K. Nathan were once two facets of the same problem of justice in Malaysia. Both were aligned to Chief Justice Tun Eusoff Chin, one kept quiet at the blatant injustices perpetrated until he could stomach it no more and rebelled, the other appointed in his tenure. The two barely acknowledged each other, more so after Tun Eusoff Chin, frightened of Dato' Gopal Sir Ram's new found conscience, decided Dato' R.K. Nathan instead should be Supreme Court judge after Tan Sri Edgar Joseph Jr retired. He was not. Tun Eusoff retired. Dato' R.K. Nathan transferred to Penang. The Conference of Rulers holds up Dato' Gopal Sri Ram's preferment to the Supreme Court.

The Federal Court did what it had to do. It could do no other. The law is not administered in a vaccuum. In the Anwar Ibrahim appeal, the law it was that mattered, not justice. So, it dismissed his appeal, affirmed the six year sentence on corruption and misuse of office. He stoically did what he had to do. He could no other. He came to the Federal Court for justice. He could not get it. He knew that all along. And reacted the only way he could: portray it as a polemical contest between good and evil, a victim of a political conspiracy that includes the courts which convicted him, braided the Chief Justice, Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah, for what he did and represented, accused his nemesis, the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, of cowardice, political and personal, in not daring to meet him face-to-face.

The Trengganu PAS state executive council member, Tun Salleh Abas, in an interview with malaysiakini, says he was offered a lucrative sinecure, with unlimited expenses and travel, in Jeddah if he would resign and not challenge the government's move to purge him as Lord President, as the Chief Justice was then known. He turned it down. A judicial tribunal sacked him in a test of wills between the head of the judiciary and the Prime Minister in which he could not win. He is not the first, nor the last, who would be seduced with glamour when darkness beckons.

If the deputy prime minister and the Chief Justice cannot justice because they fell foul of the Prime Minister, it is a magnet for any US administration he runs foul of. If anything, his recent interview on Al Jazeera raises more doubts when he insists it is courts which convicted Dato' Seri Anwar, that the courts are impartial, and he does not interfere in its decisions. No doubt he did not have a hand in appointing the new Attorney-General after a lawyer charged him with manipulating witnesses to ensure Dato' Seri Anwar's conviction.

The Judiciary is so compromised that even a determined Chief Justice as we have now, Tan Sri Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah, cannot return to its pristine role of only 15 years ago. The time-honoured rules of the past is thrown to the winds, and with every move that is welcomed, another casts doubt. So, the former Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah, is appointed to the Federal Court and on track to be Chief Justice, the in seniority in the legal service, the solicitor-general, who should reasonably be appointed to the Court of Appeal, is a High Court judge instead.

This case, and how the Attorney-General and the then Chief Justice handled it, reeks of injustice. His lawyers were charged with sedition and convicted for contempt of court in kangaroo-style proceedings; the new A-G accused of tampering with witnesses and evidence; the prisoner himself denied the courtesies allowed one.

The Kuala Lumpur International Airport is a world class structure with world class touts. The passenger is harrassed the moment he arrives, and the authorities turn a blind eye. A letter in the New Straits Times today (10 Dec 2001, NST, Letters) says this gives the country a bad name. He is wrong. It is the breakdown of moral authority that does. This is but an example. The CLP scandal is another. The missing answer scripts for the SPM examination another. The scandal in the courts in the reign of the former Chief Justice continues under the new, with matters addressed only when they hit the public eye, and everything else swept under the proverbial carpet. Rules are changed at random, not after careful study but because the Chief Justice needs something to say to journalists. Every privatisation of government utilities has failed, in tens of billions of ringgit in debt, and the government takes much pains to exculpate those responsible. Senior government servants themselves are not beyond moral sanction to take money meant for the hardcore poor.

When caught out, government bodies spread the blame; when that is not possible, they look for scapegoats. When the former Chief Justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, could not answer embarassing questions the de facto law minister, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, asked about his controversial holiday with a prominent lawyer which highlighted the corruption within the judiciary, he retorted by calling him "the minister for tables and chairs". He left in disgrace.

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