Dzaiddin’s greatest challenge - restore national and international confidence in the judiciary

(Petaling Jaya, Thursday): The announcement by the Prime Minister’s Office today that the Yang di- Pertuan Agong has consented to the appointment of Tan Sri  Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah as the new Chief Justice of the Federal Court on the advice of Prime Minister after consultation with the Conference of Rulers has averted what could have become the greatest constitutional and judicial crisis in the country.

The single greatest challenge of Dzaiddin as the highest judicial officer of the land is to restore national and international confidence in the judiciary.

What the late Tun Suffian, the most venerated former Lord President, said in one of his last public speeches in March this year on the gravity of the loss of national and international confidence in the system of justice in Malaysia should be the guiding injunction of the new Chief Justice.

This is what Tun Suffian said:

"While there are judges whose integrity and impartiality have never wavered, the public perception is that the judiciary as a whole can no longer be trusted to honour their oath of office. When I am asked what I thought, my usual reply is that I wouldn’t like to be tried by today’s judges, especially if I am innocent…. It is not enough for Government to have confidence in the judiciary if the public does not. It is not enough for courts only to go through the motion of a trial. It is not enough if justice seems to be done if in  fact justice has not been done."

This is not the only instance this year the system of justice in Malaysia has received adverse international assessment and scrutiny with grave consequences retarding Malaysia’s development process by undermining Malaysia as an international investment centre as well as the country’s plan to be an IT power - the very reason why Malaysia is lagging behind other countries in the region to attract foreign direct investment and the world’s best brains.

In June this year, the Hong Kong-based Political Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) ranked Malaysia as amongst the five countries with the worst legal systems in Asia.

The PERC survey, based on polling of more than 1,000 expatriate businessmen, mostly in the countries assessed, ranked the legal systems of Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong as the best in Asia, followed by Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand and South Korea. Malaysia headed the worst list followed by India, Vietnam, China and Indonesia.

National and international confidence in the system of justice in Malaysia suffered another grievous  blow when the international judicial and legal community issued its terrible indictment in the report entitled "Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000".

Nine  months had passed since the report was first made available to the Malaysian authorities, and although the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Dr. Rais Yatim had promised the Second Australia-Malaysia Conference in Canberra in May that the report would be presented to the Cabinet, both the government and the judicial authorities have continued to be conspicuously mute on the indictment.

The first and most important task of the new Chief Justice therefore is simply to restore national and international confidence in the system of justice in Malaysia as, to use Tun Suffian’s words,

"It is not enough for Government to have confidence in the judiciary if the public does not … It is not enough if justice seems to be done if in fact justice has not been done."

 
(7/12/2000)