THE MALAYSIAN JUDICIARY DURING THE MAHATHIR ERA
22 years of Dr Mahathir’s reign as Prime Minister of Malaysia is coming to an end, and it is apt for us now to review the impact that it has had on the Malaysian Judiciary and also the doctrine of separation of powers, essential for good government and to prevent a over- concentration of power on any one of the three bodies of government - the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.
1957 - 1987 :- A WELL RESPECTED JUDICIARY
After obtaining independence from the British in 1957 until the mid 80s, the Malaysian Judiciary built a reputation of being independent and impartial, and was held in high esteem by members of the public. There was, it seems, no accusation of judicial improprieties, corruption, bias and/or judicial misconduct during this period. After Independence, one still had a right of appeal to the Privy Council if they were aggrieved with the decision of the Federal Court, but as time passed fewer and fewer appeals were taken up to the Privy Council and this can be taken only as an indication of the public satisfaction and appreciation of the competency of the Malaysian Judiciary. Finally, it was decided towards the end of the 70's that this right of appeal to the Privy Council be discontinued. The Federal then in early 80s became the final Court of Appeal in Malaysian, and was renamed the Supreme Court.
When Dr Mahathir Mohamad became the Prime Minister, being the first person without a legal background to assume this position, he too apparently did have a rather high regard for the Malaysian Judiciary. At the advent of his premiership, in a speech made at the opening ceremony of the Asean Law Association General Assembly on 26 October 1982, he had this to say about the Malaysian Judiciary:-
“I will always respect the Judiciary. We do not expect the courts to be pro or anti Government, only pro the Constitution and pro the law. The Government always considers the Constitution and the law carefully before we do anything so we expect the Judiciary to be free to judge our alleged trespasses without fear or favour, but in accordance with the law, in accordance with the law of evidence and procedure justly and fairly. We shall always respect their judgments...”
But just several years later, the Dr Mahathir’s feelings about the Judiciary changed. It was intensified with the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Berthelsen -v- Director of Immigration, Malaysia & Ors. In brief, the DG of Immigration served a notice cancelling the two-year employment pass of a staff correspondent attched to the Kuala Lumpur office of the Asian Wall Street Journal. The Supreme Court came to a decision that since Berthelsen had not been given the opportunity to make representation regarding the cancelation of his employment pass, the requirement of natural justice had not been satisfied. Accordingly the court quashed the cancellation decision of the DG.
Subsequently in commenting on the role of the courts, Dr Mahathir was reported in the 24 November 1986 issue of Time magazine, as saying, amongst others,
“The Judiciary says , ‘Although you passed a law with certain thing in mind, we think that your mind is wrong , and we want to give our intepretation.’ If we disagree, the courts say, ‘We will intepret your disagreement.’ If we go along, we are going to lose our power of legislation. We know exactly what we want to do, but once we do it, it is intepreted in a different way, and we have no means to intepret it our way. If we find that a court always throws us out on its own intepretation, if it inteprets contrary to why we made the law, then we will have to find a way of producing a law that will have to be interpreted according to our wish.”
This passage sparked off a contempt of court action instituted by Lim Kit Siang against the Prime Minister. The High Court, and thereafter the Supreme Court dismissed this action.
This was followed by the UEM case, which although ultimately at the Supreme Court was a victory to the government, it was only a majority decision with 2 judges dissenting.
During this time, we also had the UMNO Crisis which followed the contest for UMNO presidency in 1987 which Dr Mahathir, who was challenged by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, won by a very slim majority of 43 votes. Eleven members the challenged the validity of this elections, which resulted in the High Court declaring that UMNO was an unlawful society. The plaintiffs appeled to the Supreme Court, and the appeal was fixed to be heard on 13 June 1988 by a full bench of nine Supreme Court Judges. What was at stake was the political survival of UMNO, the dominant party of the Barisan nasional, and of course, Dr Mahathir himself.
1988 JUDICIAL CRISIS - REMOVAL OF THE LORD PRESIDENT & 2 SUPREME COURT JUDGES
It was also around this time that not being able to endure ‘the various comments and accusations made by the Honourable Prime Minister against the Judiciary, not only outside but within Parliament, the then Lord President Tun Salleh Abas following a meeting with about 20 judges, including Tun Hamid Omar, decided to sent a letter to the King and the State Rulers on 26 March 1988. Following this letter, Dr Mahathir reacted and this led to the removal of Tun Salleh Abas as Lord President on 8 August 1988 by the King based on the recomendation of the Tribunal chaired by the then Chief Justice Tun Hamid Omar. It is good to note that the UMNO appeal was also heard on the same day and dismissed the following day.
Thereafter, based on the recomendations of a Second Tribunal chaired by Edgar Joseph Jr which was set up to look into the conduct of 5 Supreme Court Judges, the King on 4 October 19888 ordered the dismissal of Supreme Court Judges Tan Sri Wan Suleiman and Datuk George Seah.
1988:- SHRINKING JUDICIARY’S JUDICIAL POWER THROUGH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
In the criminal case of PP -v- Dato Yap Peng, the Supreme Court ccame to the decision that section 418A was unconstitutional on the ground that it violated Article 121(1) of the Constitution, which then provided that the judicial power of the Federation was vested in the two High Courts and such inferior courts as might be provided by federal law. The Supreme Court in that case had amongst others this to say:- “...judicial power to transfer cases from a subordinate court of competent jurisdiction as presently provided by s. 418A cannot be conferred to any organ of government other than the judiciary...” Judicial power broadly defined means “the power every sovereign authority must of necessity have to decide controversies between the subjects, of between itself and its subjects whether the right relates to life, liberty or property”, and this power rightly should and must be vested in the third arm of the government, the judiciary.
But alas, the Barisan National who had more than 2/3 majority in the Dewan Rakyat and also the Dewan Negara easily was very easily able to amend Article 121 of Federal Constitution, removing the judicial power vested in the courts. Thereafter, the High Courts have such jurisdiction and powers as may be conferred by or under federal law. This means that the court’s jurisdiction can now be determined no longer by the courts themselves, but by the legislature. The amendment has the effect of allowing parliament to enact legislation limiting or prohibiting judicial review - and over this past 22 years there has been many such amendments to laws that prevent the court from reviewing Ministers and/or government decisions.
Tun Hamid Omar, who chaired the First Tribunal that recomended the removal of Tun Salleh Abas as Lord President, then became the Lord President on 10 November 1988. It is interesting to note that Tun Hamid Omar was apparently at the meeting of judges that decided on the sending of the letter to the King and State Rulers.This was followed with Eusoff Chin, who sat in the Second Tribunal being appointed as the head of the Malaysian Judiciary.
During this period, there were many controversies which included the infamous Ayer Molek case, the “Poison Pen Letter” in early 1996 which contained 112 allegations comprising of 39 charges of corruption, 21 of abuse of power and 52 of misconduct, immoral and other indiscretions, the Chief Justice holidaying with a lawyer, the disclosure by an an High Court Judge that he received direction (or was that advice?) about a case before him by the then Chief Justice and the greatly discussed cases of Lim Guan Eng and Anwar Ibrahim. A perusal of past issues of Aliran Monthly would enlighten the reader about these issues.
After the 1988 Crisis, after the Mahathir led assault on the Judiciary, the Judiciary rather than attempting to regain its loss in stature and independence wrongly focused its attacks on the Malaysian Bar and lawyers. The Malaysian Bar who had been steadfast in their struggle for rebuilding of public confidence and the independence of the Malaysian judiciary throughout the crisis and thereafter, became the focus of attack during this period. First, there was Manjeet Singh Dillon, the then Secretary of the Bar Council, who was cited for contempt for an affidavit he affirmed on behalf of the Bar Council. Thereafter, in the courts many lawyers were being threatened with contempt and/or cited for contempt.
Thereafter, Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin was appointed the head of the Malaysian Judiciary and there was hope that under his leadership, the Malaysian Judiciary would travel the road to regain the quality and stature it once had in the period before 1988. But then hopes were shattered bit by bit. One of the Practice Directions issued towards the end of his term also has the effect of further withering the right of access to a lawyer. After retirement, almost immediately, he went and joined a law firm in the first half of 2003 - this sparked out public discussion and debate as to whether this is proper and its consequence to the public perception of the independence of the Judiciary. The Malaysian Bar felt that there should be a “cooling off period” at the very least, whilst some even felt that retired senior members of the Judiciary (especially heads of the Judiciary) should not take up positions in law firms and/or other companies. The government’s response was to look into amending the Judges Code of Ethics 1994 to include possibly post-retirement. conduct of judges. Despite all that public comments, Dzaiddin continued as consultant in that law firm.
Now we have a new Chief Justice, but it would be premature to judge him one way or the other.
Article 125 of the Federal Constitution also gives the power to the Prime Minister to initiate proceedings for the removal of judges. If the Prime Minister represents to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong that a judge ought to be removed, “...then the Yang di-Pertuan Agung shall appoint a tribunal..” which will make recommendation to remove or not to remove a particular judge. By the usage of the word “shall” it seems that the Yang di-Pertuan has no choice in the matter but to set up a tribunal. Mahathir, by removing the head of the Judiciary and 2 Supreme Court Judges, had sent a clear message to the judiciary that could be simply stated as “...if you do not do things according to my will, then you too will be moved..” That removal of judges clearly showed that it is not just a possibility and/or a threat but can be come a reality if you don’t behave as you should. The incidents of 1988 has left a deep-seated fear in many of our judges, and over the years since we see that only a few have been able to surmount that fear and have decided judiciously without fear and favour especially in cases involving the government and/or personalities and companies with links to the government.
Prior to the 1988 Judicial Crisis of 1988, the chairperson of the Malaysian Bar and other senior lawyers were consulted informally by the Lord President on the suitability of candidates before he made recommendation for appointment as judges, but after that this practice stopped.
Then in 1994 the Federal Constitution was amended to allow for the appointment of Judicial Commissioners (sort of ‘probationary judges’) who had all the powers of the judge but without the any security of tenure, which is a safeguard required to protect and ensure the independence of the judiciary. These Judicial Commissioners are appointed on contract for an initial term of two years, and if found ‘satisfactory’ the recommendation would be made by the Chief Justice (or Lord President as it was known before) to the Prime Minister.
In the July 2003 issue of the Malaysian Bar’s official newsletter, Infoline, Datuk Param Cumaraswamy, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, was reported as saying that the recent “...promotions of Augustine Paul, Arifin Jaka and Pajan Sungh Gill will be perceived by the public as a reward for having ‘delivered’” Likewise, the appointment of Hamid Omar and later Eusoff Chin as heads of the Judiciary was also possibly perceived by the public as a reward. Public perception.
An extraordinary General Meeting of the Malaysian Bar has been called for on 4 October 2003 to discuss this important aspect of judicial appointments and other related matters.
IMPACT ON THE JUDICIARY DURING THE MAHATHIR ERA
In my opinion, Mahathir believed that the Executive must lead and all others follow. He seem to have not grasped the importance of the doctrine of separation of power and/or the need for a strong and independent judiciary. Similarly as the head of UMNO, the dominant party in the Barisan National coalition which had always enjoyed more than 2/3 majority in the Dewan Rakyat and also the Dewan Negara (both together with the Agong being the Legislative), Mahathir effectively also had control of the Legislative. In his time as prime minister, Dr Mahathir has successfully removed and/or weakened all possible checks and balances including the Agung and the Judiciary.
There has been an erosion in the powers of the Malaysian Judiciary, particularly with the 1988 Constitution amendment which withdrew judicial power which was previously expressedly vested in the hands of the Judiciary only.
From Independence until the 1988 Judicial Crisis, the stature, quality and independence of the Malaysian Judiciary was highly acclaimed but ever since then there has been an erosion, in reality or at least from the perception of the man in street. Public confidence in the Malaysian Judiciary has been on a decline, to the extend that many a person who may have had a legitimate cause of action against the government and/or persons, bodies and companies associated with certain personalities in the executive have not come to the courts to pursue their claims.
Dr Mahathir, as Prime Minister, as provided for in the Federal Constitution plays a very important role in the appointment of the Chief Justice (or Lord President as it was then known), and also in the appointment of the other Judges. In the past 22 years as Prime Minister, he has naturally had an effect on the Malaysian Judiciary be it in terms of the membership and composition of the judiciary. After all, all judges are appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agung, acting on the advice of the Prime Minister. Other than for the appointment Chief Justice , the Prime Minister has a duty to consult Chief Justice and/or the heads of the different courts depending as to which court the judge is being appointed to. All the Prime Minister has to do is consult, but the Yang di-Pertuan Agung apparently from the words used has no choice but to act on the advice of the Prime Minister. He chose the “suitable” ones, but then some of these judges proudly has from time to time demonstrated rare courage through their decisions, and alas now may be considered “un-suitable” in the eyes of the Prime Minister.
But then, the Judiciary is also to be blamed. Judges, and when the accept this office they must put aside all these preferences, bias and prejudices and uphold justice without fear or favor. They must not be pro or anti Government, only pro the Constitution and pro the law. They must not be pro the big companies or pro the small man in the street, only pro justice, pro human rights. They must not bother about tomorrow, about possible repercussions from the powerful, about their chances of elevation to higher courts and judicial office. They must never forget the oath that they have taken which includes “...I will faithfully discharge my judicial duties in that office, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to Malaysia [not the Prime Minister, not the Executive, not the government], and will preserve, protect and defend its Constitution....”
The words of recommendation in the Justice In Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000 Report prepared by an international mission led by the International Bar Association must be taken heed by the Judiciary which, amongst others, stated :-
“We recommend that the judiciary does all in its power, in the wider interest of justice, to counter the harshness of repressive legislation and overbearing action on the part of the executive. That is the role of the judiciary when faced with repression no matter where it comes from...In the present situation and in light of the experiences of 1988, this will require great courage. Even still, we consider it essential if the reputation of the judicial system in Malaysia is to be restored to what it was and what it should be.”
We, the ordinary citizens of Malaysia, is also to be blamed for what has happened to our Judiciary for we have gone election after election to the ballot box and returned the Barisan National government with more than 2/3 majority, thus enabling them to amend our Federal Constitution and during the Mahathir era some of these amendments have contributed to state of our Malaysian judiciary as it is today.
Charles Hector
19 September 2003