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Dr M: "Malaysian Judges Are Not Angels"

The Prime Minister, in his year-end interview with Bernama, cannot understand why the judiciary, under the just-retired chief justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, is so severely criticised. "There may be charges (against the judiciary) but they (judges) are not angels. They are not people who are perfect. So, they have their problems," he said. No one said they were angels or perfect. What one expects of a judiciary is fair play, moral and judicial uprighteousness so that those who turn to it come away satisfied, even if they lose, that justice is done. That the Eusoff Chin court could not. Business men, especially those with international reputations of unquestioned repute, subborn the judiciary and have their favourite lawyers go on holidays with the chief justice and attorner-general. The government did nothing; indeed, it extended the Tun Eusoff Chin's term by six months when he should have been told to disappear into the woodwork.

The Prime Minister kept quiet. He wanted judicial sanction for his political vendettas. He allowed his cronies to subborn the judiciary. He wanted his sacked deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, convicted, without evidence, so that he would no more be a threat to his political career. The Eusoff Chin court happily departed from the principle of justice, ensured a court which penalised judges for not being with him, and devalued what less than 20 years ago was once respected the world over. Where was the Prime Minister when the former chief justice devalued the judiciary? When the de facto law minister raised this, Tun Eusoff so cuttingly put him down to size. The Prime Minister did nothing.

The people, he now says, must be "flexible" when judging the judiciary. He, in effect, says that they should keep quiet when the chief judiciary and his judicial henchmen went about to prove that one should not expect justice when one's opponent in court is a business man close to those in power. He kept quiet when, in a libel action, the defendant swore that a high court judge had the plaintiff's lawyer, in another libel case, write the judgement in favour of his client. Is this what the Prime Minister means by insisting judges are imperfect? And what problems do these imperfect judges face? That they could not be appointed to the federal court out of turn?

Frankly, the Prime Minister contributes to the mess the judiciary is in. He lied, at the time, when he said he knew not who would succeed Tun Eusoff. A few hours later, his office announced it. He would have preferred the attorney-general, who would merrily have gone to ensure an imperfect judiciary. He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost could not be acquitted for what would have forced the Prime Minister out of office. The judiciary under Tun Eusoff helped in this gross injustice. It had nothing to do with imperfect judges or judicial problems.

When the Prime Minister would not appear in court to explain his contempt of court when he insisted, in public at home and abroad, during the trial that Dato' Seri Anwar was guilty. Yet, Mr Justice Ariffin Jaka, after convicting him of sodomy, has yet to produce his written judgement, partly for fear of incriminating himself. On the other hand, Mr Augustine Paul, in the earlier trial, produced a voluminious judgement within weeks of the trial. How could someone unused to writing judgements produce it at such short time in his first case as a high court judge? Is it any wonder then that these two judges, and Tun Eusoff, highlight the depths to which the Malaysian judiciary has descended.

The Prime Minister now finds excuses for what he wrought. He should accept the blame for the destruction of Malaysian institutions. The judiciary is but one. When institutions are destroyed, the framework of that disappears and it functions at the whim and fancy of whoever is in charge. If the judiciary had been allowed to get on with its work, Tun Eusoff would have gone down in history as a ho-hum judge, and he would have been put right immediately after his infamous holiday arrangements with his friend, Dato' V.K. Lingam.

The judges would have pressured him to. But he sidelined judges who do, transfers whom he does not like to East Malaysia or smaller circuit towns in the peninsula at short notice, made loyalty to him as the sole criterion for judicial competence. So, one judge is appointed because he was master to a prominent lawyer, another because the MIC president wanted him as one. This has nothing to do with imperfect judges or judicial angels. The Prime Minister, for his own reasons, wanted such judges. Tun Eusoff, for his own reasons, went along. And both fell between the judicial stools. It is this destruction of the judiciary over which he presided that adds to the problems he now face in keeping himself and the country afloat.

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