FIRST, I would like to thank the New Sunday Times for the excellent interview with the new Chief Justice of Malaysia (”For impatient Zaki, justice must be delivered swiftly” — NST, Nov 9).

Zaki’s commitment to ensuring that justice is delivered fast and to clearing backlogged cases is timely and certainly reflects the CJ’s recognition of this colossal problem that has afflicted this nation for a very long time.

As all Malaysians are aware, the late deliverance of written judgments and the delay in extracting court orders at the court registry has marred and tarnished Malaysia’s judicial independence throughout the world.

His admission that we have a severe shortage of judges is undeniable.

However, his idea of appointing 17 judges from the judicial and legal services is rather mind-boggling to me. I don’t think that the judicial and legal services commission comes under his purview.

Magistrates and Sessions court judges come under a commission headed by the Attorney-General. Thus, I humbly beg to differ from his suggestion as to how these additional 17 judges could be appointed within a hundred days, as mentioned by him.

I would also like to applaud Zaki’s assurances that corruption among judges (if any) will be seriously dealt with according to the code of ethics for judges.

Let’s not blame only judges for our legal woes. To a wider extent, I blame lawyers, too. Most often, postponements of cases are requested by lawyers. They often take on too many cases and are unable to attend to them all, resulting in backlogs and postponements.

I have come to know of cases where lawyers go to the registrar’s office and request postponements without their clients’ knowledge.

Lately, this is becoming rampant. Lawyers are able to postpone cases even at the last minute. I urge the chief justice to look into this matter if he seriously wants to expedite backlogged cases and rid the judiciary of its bad reputation.

I would also like to wish our new chief justice all the best and may he be able to carry out his promises of a new style of leadership as he seeks to overhaul the judiciary.

VIJAY SHANMUGAM, Taiping

Source: NST – November 11, 2008