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Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz retires
• Rulers to
discuss CJ’s position
©The Straits Times
(Used by permission)
by Carolyn Hong, Malaysia Bureau Chief
Second most senior judge will be acting Chief Justice
IN KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA'S beleaguered Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz
Sheikh Abdul Halim, reaches retirement age today, with no word from the
government on extension of his term.
Several months ago, he was said to have asked to be allowed to stay on for six
more months.
He turns 66 today - the age of mandatory retirement for judges.
It is believed that his request for extension has not received the approval of
the King, which is required under the Malaysian Constitution.
Under Malaysian law, the second most senior judge - Court of Appeal president
Abdul Hamid Mohamad - will automatically assume the post of acting Chief
Justice.
Datuk Abdul Hamid, 65, is said to be on the list of candidates slated to take
over the top judicial post.
Sources say that the issue of the new Chief Justice is on the agenda of today's
meeting of the country's nine hereditary rulers with Prime Minister Abdullah
Badawi.
The Constitution requires the rulers' consent for judicial appointments.
The sultans, who normally do not rock the boat, collectively showed their
strength earlier this year when they refused to endorse a government choice for
the third most senior judicial post, the Chief Judge of Malaya.
This latest turn of events comes in the wake of a scandalous video clip released
recently of a lawyer boasting on the phone that he could use his political
connections to get judges promoted.
Tun Ahmad Fairuz has denied, through the de facto Law Minister Nazri Aziz, that
he was on the other end of the line, but speculation continues to rage.
This saga has put intense pressure on the government to reform the system of
making appointments to the Bench.
The Malaysian Bar Council, which represents 12,000 lawyers, also piled on the
pressure by calling for a more transparent system of judicial appointments.
Just last Friday, a human rights lawyer handed the King a 5,000-signature
petition calling for reforms.
Even Perak Sultan Azlan Shah joined the call for change - to widespread support
from the legal fraternity - when he opened the Malaysian Law Conference on
Monday.
The government's prolonged delay in making a decision on the succession to the
top judicial post underlines the dilemma that it is in.
Its next move is being closely watched as a signal of its political will to
institute reforms.
It thus came as a further blow when Tan Sri Zaki Azmi, said to be a candidate
for the Chief Justice's post, came under attack in parliament on Tuesday for
being Umno's former top legal adviser.
Parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang was quoted in the New Straits
Times yesterday as saying that Tan Sri Zaki's appointment would be a prelude
to him becoming 'Umno's Chief Justice'.
A former senior lawyer, Tan Sri Zaki, 62, was appointed a judge of Malaysia's
apex court in September, the first person to be elevated directly to the highest
court without having served as a judge in the lower courts.
The de facto Law Minister Nazri Aziz came to Tan Sri Zaki's defence in
parliament, saying that the judge was only an ordinary Umno member who sat on
the disciplinary committee.
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The Rulers have once again shown to the country (and the government) that they are neither puppets nor symbols which only follow "the advice", they are monarch with exclusive powers and they exist for a reason-- to safeguard the tanahair of Malaysia.
Glad to see the request for extension being disapproved, but the reform on the judiciary still has a long way to go. Who will be the next CJ? Will they follow the tradition, or will they prove the rumours true? If a lawyer can rocket to the apex court in an overnight, nothing is surprising even if he chairs the entire judiciary after sitting in the court for less than half a year; more importantly, how many more judges were appointed under "the pre-arrangement"?
Shim Wai Loon