(Petaling Jaya, Friday): With the retirement of Tun Eusoff Chin as Chief Justice of the Federal Court and the appointment of Tan Sri Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah as the chief judicial officer of the land, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Dr. Rais Yatim should be reminded of his promise to present a government response by the end of the year to the damning indictment on the system of justice in Malaysia as embodied in the report of the international legal and judicial community, "Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000".
At the Second Australia-Malaysia Conference at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra on May 25, 2000, attended by both of us, I had criticised the procrastination on the part of the Cabinet to address the criticisms and recommendations in "Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000".
"Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000", a joint report of International Bar Association, the Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association and the International Lawyers’ Union, was the latest in a series of adverse international reports since 1988 reflective of growing international concerns about a just rule of law and a truly independent judiciary in Malaysia.
On 17th February 2000, the Malaysian Government was given two copies of the report through the Malaysian Permanent Mission in Geneva, but the Cabinet had never addressed the criticisms and recommendations of the report.
In his response at the Canberra conference at the end of May, Rais said he would shortly be presenting the report to the Cabinet.
Rais did not honour his undertaking at the ANU Conference, probably because of the public falling-out between him and then Chief Justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, in early June over the Minister’s comments about the Chief Justice’s impropriety in "socialising" and holidaying in New Zealand with lawyer Datuk V.K. Lingam. In the public spat, Eusoff ridiculed Rais as merely a Minister for "tables and chairs" for the courts.
After Eusoff’s term of office was extended by another six months to expire on 19th December 2000, Rais announced in late July that the report on the administration of justice in Malaysia in response to "Justice In Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000" would be presented to the Cabinet by the end of the year - timed clearly after Eusoff’s final retirement.
Rais has no reason for any more delay to present and make public the government’s response to "Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000" by the end of the year.
One of the biggest blots in Eusoff’s tenure as Chief Justice is his failure to respond to the terrible indictment on the system of justice in Malaysia in "Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000", with him putting up the charade that he had not officially received a copy of the report when it was easily available both in the country and on the Internet.
When launching the report in London in April this year, leading lawyer Lord Goldsmith, co-chairman of the International Bar Association, said that the "dismal catalog of the many ways the rule of law in Malaysia has been eroded" had raised widespread concern that judges did not act independently where government interests were at stake.
In failing to respond to the report, Eusoff Chin had given the world the impression that the Malaysian judiciary did not care for adverse national and international opinion about its independence, impartiality and integrity, which is clearly not conducive to the vaunted government objective to transform Malaysia into a K-economy and one of the top IT superpowers by attracting the world’s cream of talents to Malaysia or be an attractive investment destination.
Rais should now tell Malaysians as to when the government is finally
going to respond to the "Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia 2000" or
has it decided to plead guilty to the serious indictments in the report
by silence.
(22/12/2000)