MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Can Judicial Integrity Be Upheld?

The chief justice, Tan Sri Dzaiddin Abdullah, moves to restore judicial integrity. He moves slowly but confidently. He tells the world he is as different from his predecessor -- whose did so much damage to justice that it should not be mentioned with him -- as chalk and cheese. He certainly would not go on holidays to non-existent zoos in distant lands with lawyers who appear before him. He told judges and judicial officers to adjudicate with their conscience and the public good. He moves swiftly to restore the appalling hate his predecessor had for the Bar. At his first formal sitting as chief justice, the goodwill and the hopes of many reflected the speeches given, with no fear of imprisonment for contempt for a mispoken word.

The Attorney-General, Datin Ainum Mohamed Saad, exuded that aplenty, though her choice of words suggests otherwise: Her chambers would help the judiciary "for the sake of public well-being". The public seeks justice not for its well-being, but one it expects in a civilised country. It is not a benefit to be dispensed as occasion demands. But she, in the A.-G's Chambers, exudes the same fresh air as Tan Sri Dzaiddin in the courts.

All of this must be done. Indeed the least he could. But he must swiftly address the judiciary's inherent defects which only can with constitutional amendments. This requires guts, patience, persuasive powers to convince it must. It is on this his reputation rests. What brought the judiciary to its knees is the political interference in its independence. The Prime Minister's comment in 1986 that judges are but policemen and customs officers was followed by the sacking in 1988 of the Lord President, Tun Saleh Abas (now a state executive councillor in Trengganu), and the constitution amendment which destroyed judicial power so that, as a senior lawyer emailed me, "we do not know where it now rests".

The inherent powers of the court is not with it. That must be restored before the judiciary is what it once was. If it is not, it would continue to sink in its morass, however well-intentioned the chief justice and his court. Even with the chief justice's "new broom", little would change unless it is. This inherent power of the court must reside within it, and not elsewhere.

Tan Sri Dzaiddin says what we want to hear. But many believe justice is not for who needs it but for who bids the highest or for who is close to who matters. To change this, he must get all help he can from whom he must work with: the Bar, the Attorney-General's Chambers, the political leadership. The judiciary is caught in the hidden political debate about Malay unity. He must move to right the wrongs his predecessor is rightly blamed for. He has too short a time to undo the wrongs of the past 15 years, but he must allow justice to flourish as it once did. For that the inherent powers of the court must return to it. The court must firmly distance itself from being a handmaiden to political will, and assert it bends to no one however high.

Because it was, it lent respect for the injustices that followed. The immediate past chief justice did not guide the court to greater heights -- as in any Common Law court -- but to decide who should be punished and who not -- not just litigants but his judges as well. This opened the floodgates of judicial corruption. The Anwar trials destroyed what little respect it had. The trials are not over. But his freedom is no more in the court's purview. In other words, justice has become irrelevant. This must change. It cannot in the two years he has left. But to rest easily with, even if he cannot be compared to, his predecessors, he must swiftly cut the judicial Gordion Knot. He has no choice but. For it is important for the judiciary to be one of the three pillars of the country -- in its own right, not as a handmaiden.

Ends