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A Judge Attends A Birthday Party

The MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu's son, Mr Paari Vellu, throws a birthday bash for his daughter at Kshipra's, his mother's restaurant in Brickfields. The road was chocker-block with high-end Mercedes Benzes and other baubles of the self-important and rentier-seekers. To this august gathering is invited one High Court judge, the only one, so he told the court, not from the MIC. Judge R.K. Nathan turns up though he sits in judgement in a defamation action the MIC brought against a newspaper. He reasons nothing untoward had happened, since he left almost immediately on seeing the crowd. He had thought it a small function that loving parents hold for their first born. No doubt he was more than surprised to learn that Mr Paari Vellu's father is the president of the MIC! And it dawned on him only when he arrived. Since he left immediately, judicial decorum is preserved, his ire directed at the newspapers for reporting the event and his presence.

Would he have recused if the litigants had requested for it without photographic evidence? Would he have without a request? The much lamented Tun Suffian, when Lord President, recused himself because the gossip he heard at a cocktail party about an appellant before him could cloud his judgement. How does Judge Nathan square his recusal with his refusal, in another case, to recuse because to do so would put him on collision course with the chief justice who assigned him the case? Should not that rule apply here too? He was, in practice, briefly legal adviser to the MIC president. Few believe the defendants could expect justice in this case. It does not matter if the judge is Solomon himself if public perception decides he cannot be. He should not have been judge in this case; nor agreed to present himself at the MIC president's grandaughter's birthday party.

Ultimately judicial probity and fairplay would set the standards of justice. So long as that is questioned -- and it is, now -- justice will, for some, be an agency to oppress litigants. Justice cannot be viewed in isolation. It must relate to the world around him. And this world puts it on notice. A former Lord president, Tun Azmi, once said he would want no more accolade than for a litigant who lost his court leaving it convinced he had had a fair hearing. That is not so now. No judge would decide against a crony business man, especially when accompanied by crony lawyers, however weak his case. He would even allow the business man's lawyer to write the judgement the business man wants. Indeed, the chief justice does not respond to an affidavit about this filed in the courts. But then could he when he goes on holiday to New Zealand with the crony lawyer and their families? Litigants are put to unnecessary expense and judicial harassement when routine orders are denied so that a higher court could decide on its merits. And lawyers cited for contempt when they pursue their clients' cases vigorously.

But all is not lost. Several judges, sidelined for not lending their names for this judicial abberation, maintain their respect and behave with utmost probity and judicial discretion. Much dwells upon them to guide the judiciary back to the justifiable reputation in had less than two decades ago. So long as judges believe that they could do what they like, so long as they do not get caught, they cannot be relied upon to adjudicate fairly in their courts. A bent judge, however brilliant and judicially esteemed and thought of, remains a bent judge. This throws into question even the most noteworth of his judgements. Tun Hamid Omar was, by any standard, a competent judge, who removed the cobwebs of the past from the administration, but his friendship with a business man whose empire did not survie his death destroyed his reputation as a judge. His unjudicial alacrity in presiding over the tribunal to dismiss a man whose successor he was, destroyed his reputation for ever. The judicial malaise now results from that misjudgement. Judges could do what they like so long as they are not caught. And woe betide a litigant who, because of these failings want the judge recused.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my