You Can Assault A Deputy Prime Minister But Never Steal A Bra (corrected)

["M.G.G. Pillai" <pillai@mgg.pc.my>]

A fellow is jailed three years for stealing a bra from a supermarket.  A
lawyer is jailed six months for not renewing his practicing certificate
on time.  Another is jailed three months for filing an affidavit on
behalf of his client which the courts decided scandalized the court.  A
third is jailed six months for comments he made as a litigant.  One man
gets six months for killing his wife by driving a car over her.  But it
is 24 years -- in four concurrent terms of six years -- for one who
exceeded his authority in asking the police which had cleared his name
to get a retraction from those who had accused him of sodomy and
adultery.  One journalist is jailed three months for writing about a
case involving the son of a Court of Appeal judge without identifying
himself as the husband of the vice principal of the school.  A
defamation case took barely six months to complete but the Federal Court
more than two years after hearing the appeal to not deliver judgement,
with no immediate prospect in sight.  One lawyer writes the judgement in
a high profile case in which he represents the plaintiff.  In that case,
the court conveniently hands him half the RM20 million he demanded in
defamations, without any proof of loss.  Judges are warned to deliver
judgements in six months, but the Court of Appeal judge who delivered
this homily would soon be in contempt of his own prescription.  The
Chief Justice, as head of a coram in one case, already is, delaying
judgement for more than two years. 

     This disturbing judicial trend of seeming selective vindictiveness
against defendants, the special position of one particular lawyer who
boasts of going on holidays with the Chief Justice and the
Attorney-General and their families, the Prime Minister's demand that he
would only appear as a witness, in a case he had earlier agreed to,
after he knows why his evidence is important, the Bar Council ordered to
pay nearly a million ringgit -- with more to come -- when an attempt to
discipline this friend of the Chief Justice and Attorney General
successfully appealled all the way to the Federal Court, to institute a
trend which, with other pressures, turns the Bar Council into a
toothless mouse, puts the judiciary on a spotlight. Although the
opposition filed quite a few elections petitions, many would not carry
this through because the penalty for failing is heavy costs; and
election petitions, as we all know, succeed almost always when it is the
National Front that files it.  As Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah found out,
even that could land the opposition candidate with heavy costs.  The
capriciousness with which the judiciary seems to work, with the Chief
Justice wanting to control developments so that those he wants destroyed
shall stay destroyed at the Court of Appeal.  After M.G.G. Pillai got
his leave to appeal from the Federal Court, Tun Eusoff Chin decided he
shall in future appear in all leave applications.  Judges do not seem to
be selected for their competence but for their loyalty. 

     This trend frightens the citizen from appearing in the courts to
seek justice.  The more reflective judges worry about it endlessly.  The
judge in one case bluntly told parties in a defamation case that he
would not allow the Court of Appeal Judgement in the M.G.G. Pillai v
Vincent Tan libel case to be raised in a defamation case before him.  It
is widely believed, even among the judges, the Federal Court would
announce the judgement of the M.G.G. Pillai appeal after some defamation
cases -- principal plaintiff's lawyer, Dato' V.K. Lingam -- are settled
to the plaintiff's complete satisfaction.  That the judiciary's
independence has to be restated time and time again by the Chief
Justice, like an endless mantra, to convince us and them that what is
not is underlines the dilemma.  

     The judiciary, by and large, does a good job. But because the Chief
Justice marks judges as being for him or against him, many otherwise
excellent judges swat flies while favoured others are overloaded. In
many a high profile need for judges, I have not been proved wrong in
guessing who would be appointed.  The judge who allowed a lawyer to
write a judgement, now in the Court of Appeal, is awaiting preferment to
the Federal Court, the stumbling block being the Conference of Rulers
who, until the last session, would not agree. Ultimately, the judiciary
must be responsible for its own reputation.  A drop of indigo discolours
a cup of vanilla, as powerful indigo judges would the judiciary.  Until
the judiciary returns to its much vaunted independence and respect it
held in the past, remember: if you must commit a crime, never steal a
bra; instead go beat up the deputy prime minister to near death.  Tan
Sri Rahim Noor was so sure of returning home victorious that he told his
wife to prepare goreng pisang (fried bananas) for evening tea on the day
he he was convicted for murderously assaulting He Who Must Be Destroyed
At All Cost. 

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