Transmenu powered by JoomlArt.com - Mambo Joomla Professional Templates Club

©New Straits Times (Used by permission)
by V. Anbalagan

KUALA LUMPUR: The Court of Appeal registry’s records revealed that a former High Court judge did not write grounds of judgment in 33 criminal and civil cases.

The backlog included three criminal cases in Seremban which carried the death penalty.

The judge presided over the cases while serving at the High Court there five years ago.

The rest are civil cases in which he made rulings while there and in Kuala Lumpur between 1999 and 2002.

It is understood that the litigants in all 33 cases had filed notices of appeal against decisions by the judge who is now sitting in the Federal Court.

Checks with lawyers representing the accused in the three criminal cases revealed that they were still awaiting written grounds to file the memorandum of appeal to the Court of Appeal.

In one case, the Attorney-General’s Chambers is also awaiting the written judgment as it intends to cross appeal.

The New Straits Times had on July 23 revealed that the judge had not provided written grounds of judgment in at least 30 criminal and civil cases.

CJ disputed allegations that he had erred

On Aug 16, it was reported that two men were languishing on Death Row in Kajang prison because the judge who convicted them at the High Court in Seremban had not provided grounds of judgment.

Another person was also ordered by the same judge to be held at the Sungai Buloh prison at the pleasure of the Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negri Sembilan on grounds of insanity.

On Tuesday, Chief Justice of the Federal Court Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim disputed allegations that he had erred in promoting judicial officers who had not written judgments. He had also asked for proof that he had elevated undeserving judges.

Meanwhile, lawyer Karpal Singh questioned the basis on which Ahmad Fairuz had promoted former High Court judge Tengku Baharuddin Shah Tengku Mahmud to the Court of Appeal.

"A delay of nine years and three months with the grounds of judgment not supplied is more cause for Ahmad Fairuz to spring into action" he said.

On Monday, former fish and vegetable vendor Baha Jambol who is on Death Row for dadah trafficking, filed an action in the Court of Appeal to free him or set aside the conviction of the High Court. Tengku Baharuddin had sentenced Baha to death on April 26, 1998.

Karpal also urged acting Court of Appeal president Datuk Alauddin Mohd Sheriff to review all pending appeals where there had been a delay in delivering grounds of judgment. This will help expedite submissions of the written judgments.

Lawyer Baljit Singh Siddhu said there should be a law to compel judicial officers, including those from subordinate courts, to provide written grounds of judgment within a specific period of time.

"Now, we only have the chief justice’s circular which is not legally binding on judicial officers," he said.

Comments (6)

Subscribe to this comment's feed