The judge and the thief. Part 2
1.justice delayed is a legal maxim. Some judges took it seriously, while some Pooh poohed it. If a legal redress or equitable relief is due to injured parties but is not dispensed off in a timely in manner, it's like not having it at all.
2. Except, I put it to you, the injured party in this case is the public. The judiciary, in particular the supreme court, has gone soft bellied on the felon and injures the public.
3. The supreme court is synonymous with jarndyce vs jarndyce in Charles Dickens' bleak house.
4. If lawyers do not question this procrastination, then I, a non lawyer will ask the inconvenient truth.
5. The 'unright' thinking members of society cannot handle the facts. The fact is that billion of dollars were stolen. The fact is, Najib Razak is a thief. The fact is this person has been convicted twice
6. Instead, certain sections of our community prefer to listen to innuendos, rumours, under the sarong stories and fanciful tales spun by a yobo in far away England.
7. The idea that different set of rules and law applies to different sections of society is indeed repugnant. The sovereignty of the law means the same law applies to everyone.
8. Unfortunately, that's what is happening in our country. The person who steals billions of dollars can get away free, while the person who steals a few cans of milk is despatched to jail quickly.
9. But can we say the same thing will happen to the judiciary? That a different set of rules apply to the judiciary? That, in effect, the judiciary will never convict one of their own? That, in effect, a judicial apartheid exists?
10. I think not. Just because we have been conditioned into thinking that differentiation of the law is a normal, as in politics, it must, as a matter of course, happened in the judiciary.
11. In the main, the judiciary has been stringent and severe at self pruning. The bad fruits are quickly removed so that the judiciary, as a whole, remains pristine.
12. Magistrates have been sent to jail, lawyers are disbarred and judges asked to leave.
13. If nazlan is a rotten fruit, he will be removed expeditiously.
14. What more, we have a lady as CJ, who is all business. We certainly won't have the foot shuffling and back stepping arguments normally associated with politicians.
15. We certainly won't have the disingenuous and hypocritical argument…oh we can't rescind his appointment as the agong has consented. To do so is derhaka .
16. So now, it's rescinded, does it mean the agong has withdrawn his consent? The fact is, the agong does not interfere in day to day management. If he has, he won't even have time to go to the toilet.
Please, la, we are not goats. Who are you trying to kid?
17. The judiciary ought only to apply one set of laws. If it does otherwise, that can only emanate from rotten judges.
18. Hence, despite our reservations that a different set of rules apply to judges, it's no cause to believe that nazlan should have recused himself.
19. If nazlan had erred in law and fact, that would have been repudiated by the court of appeal. That his findings were affirmed by the CA is a testament to the soundness of his judgement.
20. In any case, the matter should have been raised in the early stages of the SRC trial. Now it's chisel making noise after the house is completed. Or as Lord Denning said it, having made the bed you must now lie in it.
21. Nazlan took over 50 pages to write his epic judgement. Certainly he has the intellectual wherewithal to write it.
22. That should not be taken against him. It shows that he is serious, meticulous and diligent.
23. Tun Sufian may have written short judgements. But others like raja azlan and nh chan wrote long ones to merit the cases.
24. Eusoffe Abdul kader was even more intimidating. Not only were his judgements long, but he uses weighty English that require you, then, to carry thick volumes of random house dictionary.
25. Of course, nowadays, you can Google them to find not only their meanings but also how to pronounce them, especially his Latin phrases.
26. So nazlan/justice BAO may have used more than 50 A4 papers to write his judgement. That is no reason to doubt his penmanship and cast aspersions on his ability.
27. Having said the above, I do find the lawyer's march the other day a bit hollow. Sure, we saw an Indian gentleman speaking animatedly and passionately with arms flailing and so on. It was indeed a comic relief after listening to mad dog tajuddin all week. But that was about it.
28. I find the march for non-interference of the judiciary, independence of the judiciary etc, a bit Harry Potterish.
29. I would have liked the march to be more specific in it's causes. Like:-
#making public the list of judges dragging their feet.
#weeding out bad hats in the judiciary
#calling for a shorter court process and so on.
30. As it is marching for causes looking outside the judiciary not only has no public resonance but protecting brother legal practitioners, as it were, a bit incestuous. They are actually cocooning themselves.
31. No disrespect to bar council presidents-to each his or her own. But I find the bar council president with the more touché causes is ambiga srineevasan. Sharp and specific enough to warrant some army veterans dancing bare butt infront of her house.
32. Right now, the most pressing need is to have a speedy dispensation of justice. It's no longer justice rushed, is justice crushed. No sirs.
33. The purpose of speedy and prompt judgements is, as m n bandhari the Madras CJ said, is that justice can be served to the people. I find that statement more cogent and convincing, unlike the 'convincing'numbers mentioned by Mamu Anwar.
34. Justice and fairness served to the people is more important than the protracted and strained justice and fairness served to Ali babavum Najib
35. Magna Carta stated, among things, to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice. One of the things Francis bacon said when he became LC was swift justice is the sweetest and William Penn said justice delayed is injustice.
36. I am reminded of the Latin legal maxim: in diem vivere in lege sunt detestabilis. Delays in the law are hateful.
37. In more recent times, warren burger,one time CJ of USA, said that inordinate delays in the dispensation of justice destroys public confidence of the judiciary in several ways:-
38. If a judgement takes too long, the duration erodes the value of the verdict itself. No person alive would know head or tail what the case is all about.
39. Is the unreasonable duration is a: because the case is too long? God forbid we have numbskull judges. B:the system is too complex. Supreme court judges are overburdened or c: the case lacks political favour. Now which is which?
40. Charles Dickens in bleak house tells us of fictional cases, jarndyce and jarndyce and jennens v jennens whick took so long a time that one person loses his mind and another is consumed by the corroding hatred, mistrust and doubt about the efficacy of the justice system.
41. In the words of the great economist,Maynard Keynes, in the long run we are all dead.
42. Let me give you my own fictional instances. Suppose one of the supreme court judges were to die. Fairness demands that he or she be replaced immediately, right?
43. Now suppose one of the defense lawyers were to die, fairness dictates that we give the accused time to find a mafia defending lawyer or a le pen defending Klaus Barbie.
44. My question is why is it fair to have the judge replaced immediately but fair to give the accused time? Why? There are 2 different notions of fairness here.
45. The point is let not our corroding fear, mistrust and doubt presuppose the judiciary is not fair.
46. I have given one amplification by Warren burger.a judgement arrived at promptly And with great care as done by nazlan should be applauded. Not doubted.
47.and may I remind readers that the decision arrived at by nazlan, is not done willy-nilly. It's not arrived at based on a poison letter.
48. It's based using the principle of stare decisis, precedents, indisputable evidences and debunking defense counsels incredulous arguments.
49.lords Denning, Wilberforce, scarman and lady hale would never write a 3/4 page judgement when faced with a corruption case involving a person in high office. Tengku maimun certainly would not.
