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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [sangkancil] [MGG] Justice In Jeopardy: The Chief Justice
Blinks
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 18:28:03 +0800 (MYT)
From: "M.G.G. Pillai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Sang Kancil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, SK
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: SK-MGG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.malaysia,tmnet.communities,jaring.general
The chief justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, is irritated. The de facto law
minister (or in his derisive description, the law minister for tables
and chairs) unfairly accused him. Mind you, he paid for his holiday to
New Zealand in 1994, and only bumped into him whilst there. The
Anti-Corruption Agency, anyway, cleared him of wrong doing. How dare
the chairs and tables minister question him on matters beyond his
competence, anyway. In any case, the Pillai judgement would be out --
30 months after hearing arguments -- soon. Only the quantum of damages
is at stake and one of the three man panel is sick. He not only
sometimes "run into" lawyers on holidays (actually it is the lawyers who
rush to meet him, since they all want photographs with him, and how can
he prevent that?) and this particular holiday raised much ire because
the lawyer in question is both rich and successful, and people's
jealousy knows no bounds. And he would sue any who suggests someone
else paid for his trip. All in all, a bravura performance of hot air and
irrelevancies. He believes, like the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling
Liong Sik, he should be allowed to remain as chief justice however heavy
the cloud over his head. Only that he does not see it is a cloud but a
brilliant, multi-coloured umbrella that sustains his office.
The rumbles grow. The Malaysian Bar yesterday decided upon an
extraordinary general meeting to request for a tribunal to consider the
chief justice's conduct. Contrary to the president of the court of
appeal, Tan Sri Lamin Yunos's view, public confidence ensures the
independence of the judiciary and its honoured role in society. That
has disappeared. If Dato' Lingam and his brother is against you, the
certainty of losing the case is beyond statistical probability. As it
would in your favour when they represent you or you call them in after
losing in the courts below. A lawyer is jailed for contempt, loses the
appeal, but when one of them appeared on his behalf, he succeeds. The
former Bank Negara official who needed his passport, held by the courts,
for a dental appointment could not get it until one of them represented
him. The Prime Minister's son, in his defamation suit against two
newspapers ensures his victory by having the Lingam brothers as his
counsel.
The chief justice protesteth too much. A chief justice who insists
upon his probity and uprightness on the basis of an anti-corruption
investigation ensures not his exoneration but his flawed reputation. The
ACA, further, cannot, indeed does not, "clear" anybody. They send the
files to the Attorney-General's Chambers, which does the clearing. But
the attorney-general, Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah, is also a holiday
companion of this lawyer and his business man friend. In any case, the
Attorney-General's Chambers has not acted against anyone even if the
weight of evidence justified action. No one accused him of not paying
for his holiday. Dato' Rais certainly did not. But he must be
congratulated for his diligence in keeping complete records of this
holiday. So, he would, no doubt, have complete details of his other
holidays, and the hospitality of business men his holiday companion,
Dato' V.K. Lingam, represents. Could the chief justice, for instance,
deny he did not accept the hospitality of Tan Sri Vincent Tan by staying
at an apartment in his gift in London? Or that Dato' Lingam did not
take him to see several houses and plots of land when the chief justice
wanted to purchase a house in Petaling Jaya or that they visit each
other often enough to raise eyebrows?
Other frequent off-court friends of this lawyer included the
president of the court of appeal and of the court of appeal judge, Dato'
Mokhtar Sidin, who took time off from a high profile case in Temerloh to
rush to Kuala Lumpur to hear this case, rushing it through and refusing
time for Pillai to engage counsel. Besides, Tan Sri Vincent Tan
produced no evidence of any kind except to demand RM20 million in
general damages from the witness box. An affidavit alleges Dato'
Lingam, who represented Tan Sri Vincent Tan in that case, wrote or
edited Judge Mokhtar Sidin's judgement, which a court of appeal panel
headed by Tan Sri Lamin affirmed. Because the Pillai case had
widespread legal repercussions, he asked for at least a five-man bench
in the federal court appeal. After allowing it, Tun Eusoff backtracked
and headed the three-man bench that finally heard the appeal 30 months
ago. He blocked every request, in chambers and in open court, to
disqualify himself because of his friendship with Dato' Lingam.
So, at every level of the case and appeal, Dato' Lingam had a close
friend on the bench: Dato' Seri Mokhtar Sidin, Tan Sri Lamin Yunos, Tun
Eusoff. The chief justice now says the only issue in Pillai's case is
the quantum of damages. Not so. The other important argument was the
high court hearings was flawed and void ab initio. The quantum revolves
upon the principle in the Plenitude case, in which a business man's
lower court award of RM2 million was held unsustainable since he did not
prove his loss and therefore only entitled to nominal damages, in that
case RM10. Further, one federal court judge in the Pillai case was in
the Plenitude case's unanimous decision. Justice, we are told, must not
only be done but be seen to be done. Can it amidst this interlocking
friendships between judges and this holiday companion and amanuensis of
judges? That is the issue in this crisis of judicial confidence, not if
the chief justice paid for his holidays out of his own pocket.
M.G.G. Pillai
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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