Thinking Allowed on the Judiciary

TWO SATURDAYS ago I was up in the clouds looking at the vast landscapes of castles, forests, rolling hills interspersed with palans, maybe some gardens -- but they were all bathed in cottony white. Some shades of grey here and three -- but it was overwhelmingly white. You thought of angels and demons, goblins and elves hidden behind those cottony abodes -- and wonder if Planet Earth would one day look like this after Armageddon. Not a sight any any human beings, like men at work by their kebun, and children at play at the school or kindie. Armageddon brought about by a dozen nuclear bombs, enough to snuff out the human race in a matter of hours, and all because the species among them contained some deviants. Michael Crichton would be able tp spin an impressive storyline of this scenario. Maybe Steven Spielberg is already working on a movie based on such a storyboard?

IF thou art Lost at sea, it's just myself looking out of the window of the plane on my way to Kingswood Inn and the sea below looked deceptively calm without any moving waves, just a darker shade of grey below the cottony clouds. Deafening Silence.

When I wrote about ANGELS on Sunday, don't you remember Interlude,, so short thy memory isit? one solitary respondent commented, and I quote See Fei, who I remember on his maiden visit here was a mite taken aback by Desispeak, and left not too CONplimentary a note. Okay, sperring ellor here, should read Complimentary. Jest having one back on See Fei, a fellow Malaysian and I believe a spirited Ipohlang but I don't know while he listed himself as located in da Solomon Islands but yet often blogs about Da Sin-land. Mysterious, some of these Ipohlang!

Never mind, I was taken by da quote, which I deem discerning, enlightening, and contains a code for us to desipher:

"See Fei said...
angels...demons...they come from the same place. one a bureaucrat, the other an entrepreneur.

10:11 PM "


Another quote was very much of my mind this morn as I listened to "You needed me" on Light&Easy on the way to work.
"EACH NIGHT WHEN I GO TO SLEEP, I DIE. AND THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN I WAKE UP, I AM REBORN." ~~ Mahatma Gandhi

Hey, Monday is not a holiday for Desi -- he has to work like most Tom, Dick and Harry to put "kaya" on the B&B. Of coursem some Dicks work more than others.I don't because I work SMART. But I feel blessed because I am reborn as a new son with the rising sun.So I startr my day with a whispered Thank You prayer that I can converse with my friends.


Earlier in the evening on Sunday, I had read an interesting interview by the New Sunday Times (NST) with a retired judge whom I had the privilege of "covering" in my journo days -- hence the loyar buluk in Desi. Yes, the esteemed jugde, then a Prosecuting Officer if I'm not mistaken, or he was on the bench as Sessions Court President? Well, gain an inkling of a fine mind at work, and patriotic Malaysians must take heed of what he says, for the future of a very important Institution is hugely at stake, and all interested parties must reflect on someone who finds the time to share his experience: ~~~

Sunday Interview:
'If the courts are contaminated, where else can people go?'
04 Jun 2006



One of the best ways to ensure integrity in the judiciary would be to set up a Judicial Commission, says Datuk Shaikh Daud Md Ismail. Tracing allegations of corruption within the legal system back to 1988, the outspoken former Court of Appeal judge tells (NST) that the authors of poison-pen letters should be protected.

NST: Chief Justice Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim said recently he had received poison-pen letters alleging corruption in the judiciary and had forwarded them to the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA). He said the judiciary had conducted its own investigations but had no ‘credible evidence’. What is the perception now about corruption in the judiciary, compared with before your retirement in 2001?

A: Everybody held the courts in high esteem until the 1988 crisis and the respect really plummeted. Before I retired, there had been hints but no one put it down on paper except for a particular incident in 1996 when there was one petition against judges.

It was about corruption in the judiciary and naming some judges for high living and that sort of thing. It was distributed to all the judges attending the annual judges’ conference in Kuching.

All of us read it and we thought the petition, although anonymous, should have been investigated.


NST: Was this the poison-pen letter written by then High Court judge Datuk Syed Ahmad Idid Syed Abdullah Idid, who later resigned?

A: That’s the one I was referring to. In our view, some of the judges’ view, the petition was not investigated but the writer of the petition was investigated.

That is why I say, people now resort to anonymous letters because it has become a norm that whistle-blowers become the victims at times. So people are afraid to put their names. Especially, for example, if someone wants to complain against a judge.

Now, who would be in a better position to know whether a judge is corrupt or not? Probably lawyers. Do you think a lawyer would dare send a letter openly, putting his name, to say that this happened in his case? His career is going to be ruined.


NST: Why do you pinpoint 1988 as the year things started to change?

A: The removal of the Lord President, Tun Mohamad Salleh Abas, affected the court tremendously. I don’t know whether corruption started after or before that, but it seemed to surface.

In my retirement speech, I quoted an incident which was told to me by one senior lawyer.

After he interviewed a client for (a civil) case, he was of the view that the client had a bad case so he recommended that they settle it out of court.

The reply he got was shocking. His client said: "Don’t worry, you file it in this particular court and boleh menang (can win)."

That clinched with what a businessman had told me (earlier) about not wanting to win or lose because a particular judge was sitting in that court. That should never happen and it had never happened before.


NST: The Chief Justice has proposed having more than one judge presiding over a trial to prevent corruption. What are your views on that proposal?
A: In theory it may be OK, but in practice, I don’t think it would work. For a start, you would have to treble the number of judges immediately. That would prolong the hearing of cases.

Three persons sitting might ask more questions and probe further. One may not agree with another. The courts must also be equipped to have three judges. Some parts may have to be enlarged to accommodate three.


NST: Solicitor-General Datuk Idris Harun has suggested jury trials to tackle the problem. Please comment.

A: Jury trials would reduce corruption because it is not the judge’s decision on facts. The jury’s decision is on the facts of the case but the judge will guide the jury on the law.

But the reason why jury trials were abolished is because they were ineffective. I did a number of jury trials in the High Court and I found our juries are not equipped to handle the situation.


DESIDERATA is truncating the Interview midway and encourages my ER to grab a back-copy of the Sunday paper to fully enjoy the elucidation. I'm not spoiling my Readers here. Spend 60sen-lah, half price most likely for a 24-hour-old copy!



Among other more interesting points, Shaikh Daud said that "I remember when I was senior federal counsel with the ACA from 1973 to 1976, we successfully prosecuted cases which started from anonymous letters."

Also the newspaper added an important~~~

FOOTNOTE: Then Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah said in July 1996 that the 12 judges implicated in the letter had been interviewed by the authorities. "My officers and I have perused thoroughly the investigation papers of the ACA and the police and we are satisfied that the allegations are wholly untrue and baseless," he said.


DESIDERATA's Blues Mondae ChallengiA: How many of my EsteemedReaders see the significance of the year mentioned above -- 1988?

Now, please indulge this scribe a little if I conduct a little "history" lesson, mostly political, but having much, okay, IMHO if that counts much or little, do I care? ~~~ a "huge" bearing on the Judiciary. (That self-posed question was inserted because I was Thinking Allowed that so many judges voices had been dismissed, what is a little voice of a journalist? Do you see da light, mGf?)

But can I delight with a poem, maybe reprised;
I'm not sure because nowadays, memories are short.
(Jest to avoid any missunderstanding,esp with the ladies who are not so interested in Politics!:( the unsureness is not about the Poem, it's aboyut it being reprised here. Sorry for the digression/aggression, a trait I picked up from obserrtving lawyers at work. Serious.)


Questioning Mind

They talk in many tongues
Preaching salvation
And monopoly of the Truth

Breathing hellfire
On those who'd not stay
To sing the same saccharine song

You're a traitor to the Cause
If you should raise just a murmur
of any question

You'd die a thousand deaths
If you'd doubt the Elder's tongue
Or God forbid,
Challenge the wisdom of his Word

So remain a meek lamb
Another number in his obedient flock
Or else, bid farewell
Jump off this wagon quick
So that Heaven has one more
Vacancy to dwell.

Composing the poem enabled to writer to “release” some really strong feelings bordering on anger, and questioning, at some of the “lies” he had come across, especially coming out of the mouths of “preachers”, and I don’t restrict these to the religious order. Included are those activists shouting the Cause of independent journalism, environment conservation, consumerism, even feminism or other social causes. There are just too many wolves in sheep’s clothing around, smiling tigers too. Trouble is, the modern “preachers” now wear designer attire, and they live at five-star hotels, I mean it, literally, while they bring the word of their “almighty” Cause to the poor and lowly, down-trodden, ignoramus, or pitiable converts-to-be – ordinary men and women in the street - staying in humble dwellings and working overtime to earn their three square meals!

Dr. Mahathir’s 22-year reign as the helmsman of Malaysia has also seen the country through many good, and bad, and ugly, times. The most tumultuous event would, in my humble opinion, be the “sacking of Anwar Ibrahim” as the deputy premier and as deputy president of UMNO, which was followed by a series of “strange events” in the courts, and in the streets of Kuala Lumpur. For me as a journalist, these events amounted to what I’d term as “rude awakenings”; but there was not much room for putting down in words one’s feelings of bewilderment and outrage at these events.

Most just watched with a sense of resignation at the unfolding drama; many termed it as “sandiwara” (Malay opera), but these “shows” at least stirred many Malaysians from their life-goes-on-as-usual life-style. For once, many became more politically conscious, if not active, and they asked questions, if not in public, at least at the teh-tarik stall or higher class coffee-house, or at their favourite water-hole. People began to wonder what’s happening, and where are we, as a nation, headed? Featured here is one poem composed during these interesting times, relating to the then unfolding, mainly political, events:

Now bear2 with Desi, with a seond ditty, mayhaps reprised, I'm not sure2!~~~


It Gets Curiouser and Curiouser

When I was young I was told

Spinning a story you must be bold

But it still must have a beginning

And an ending, and somethin’ in between

But lately my motherland

Gave birth to very strange events

The cycle was like a record

Being played out from the end

Remember Michael Jackson’s video clip

When uprooted trees regained their standing stature

Dried up safari land became green pastures

And elephant carcasses stood majestically alive again

It gets curiouser and curiouser

As was observed in Alice in Wonderland

And events in Malaysia the past decade

Closely mirror Lewis Carroll’s rich imaginings

The story purportedly started in September 1998

As many Anwarists would want you to believe

That Reformasi was galvanized

When the deputy PM was excised from the head

But my friends, be reminded

It was way back on a May Day in ‘88

When the court sat on a holy day

A panel of junior judges sacked their chief

Salleh Abas Lord President was dismissed in a jiffy

But then DPM Anwar Ibrahim held his tongue

A decade later with one fell swoop

Anwar became a lauded victim in the vicious loop

Refomrasi Anwar started, his loyalists proclaim

They forgot Salleh and his Brave Ones

Who stood their ground for justice

They indeed were the unheralded Originals

Reformation is not only taking to the streets

It’s changing of the mindset

What became of the Judiciary following Salleh?

It was downhill all the way…

It led the country’s leading judicious mind

The late Tun Suffian Hashim to lament in 2000:

“I wouldn’t like to be tried by today’s judges,

Especially if I am innocent.”*


*Quoted from a speech on March 10, 2000 that the former Lord President delivered at a Bar commemoration for the late Justice Tan Sri Wan Sulaiman.


In closing this long track, following in the stylo of the New Sunday Times, here's Another Footnote from Desi~~~

I’d add here is that many Malaysians have short memories, including so called Anwar’s supporters who only cried “foul” when their leader was deemed to have been unfairly treated by the authorities, going through the motion of some court proceeding, followed by jail terms. But did they ever ask: when the judges were sacked about a decade earlier, and Anwar was part and parcel of the Government (first as Finance Minister, then as Deputy Prime Minister), did he raise any protest when “injustice” befell the former Lord President and five fellow judges? There is a saying, “What goes around, comes around”, which many of the country’s politicians must take heed of, if they do have a conscience.


FURTHER READING SUGGESTED:

But if you wish to Close One Eye or Switch Off Half A Brain,
don't bother to visit malaysianbar.org.my
to expand your historical knowledge of a landmark event (or series)
in Sejarah Malaysia, not accoridng to RTMElm!

Seah: History will exonerate
me for taking a stand -- The Hidden Story
By ©Datuk George Seah