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©The Sun (Used by permission)
by Husna Yusop

‘Judges must stay on the top, not mix with lawyers’

PETALING JAYA: There was a time when judges kept to themselves. They did not mix with those outside the group. This was the tradition, said former High Court judge Datuk Syed Ahmad Idid Syed Abdullah, who observed that the standard has loosened over the years.

“Each is to his own function. Lawyers represent clients – whether by prosecuting or defending – and judges must be on the top, not in the middle.

“So, a judge should not ‘turun padang‘ (go to the ground). He should be above that. And, lawyers should not be seen with a judge,” he said. “In the old days, we judges kept to ourselves. We were friends only with people who were respectable, with no involvement in legal matters or businesses,” he said.

Syed Ahmad, 69, a High Court judge from 1990-96, was asked to comment on the extent to which judges and lawyers can fraternise, in view of recent developments in Altantuya Shaariibuu murder trial where a deputy public prosecutor was removed because he played badminton with the presiding judge.

Syed Ahmad: Judges must be on pedestal

Last week, Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail replaced DPP Salehuddin Saidin with Tun Abdul Majid Hamzah, after he learned that Salehuddin had been playing badminton with trial judge Datuk Mohd Zaki Md Yasin.Veteran lawyer and opposition MP Karpal Singh, who is holding a watching brief for Altantuya’s family and the Mongolian government, has filed an appeal to disqualify Hazman Ahmad from representing Chief Insp Azilah Hadri,one of the accused, because Hazman’s late wife was Mohd Zaki’s niece.

Syed Ahmad said there was no specific code of conduct that judges and lawyers must adhere to except for certain rules under the Legal Profession Act 1976,“but they do not cover everything”.

Traditionally, he said, judges accepted invitation to attend a function only from associations, and not individuals or a particular law firm.

“Judges must be really above board and keep to themselves,” he said. “They must be on a pedestal. To me, judges are the property of the nation. They are the
national conscience.”

Asked why judges were expected to maintain such conduct, Syed Ahmad said, “because justice must not only be done but seen to be done”.

He said a judge’s conduct must be such that everyone concerned was comfortable that a decision was made not because he was close to any one party.

On the status of judges now compared with the past, he said, “There is a loosening of standards. I am very sad.”

He said it was not a problem if one party in the case were to be related through marriage or in a distant way to the judge. However, he said if there was possibility of conflict of interest, “one must be honourable enough to take the necessary action”.

Syed Ahmad read law in Britain in the 60s and joined the legal practice after returned to Malaysia. He was a magistrate in Kedah. After a couple of corporat stints, he returned to the judiciary and was appointed High Court judge in 1990. He resigned in 1996, after his allegations of corruption in the judiciary were dismissed by the authorities.

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