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 ©The
Sunday Star (Used by permission)
by Shaila Koshy
A SMART partnership is one where all members have the same vision but they draw
on each other's strengths to up their game.
Focussing on policy matters, Chief Justice Datuk Seri Abdul Hamid Mohamed, who
took over as top judge on Nov 1, has delegated the nuts and bolts of
administration to Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Zaki Tun Azmi.
When the Court of Appeal first moved to Putrajaya, the filing room was in a
chaotic state, says a senior judge who spoke on grounds of anonymity.
“No attention had been paid to it. Before then Court of Appeal President (the
late) Tan Sri Abdul Malek Ahmad could do much, he fell seriously ill. In
fairness to him, he went to the registry to see how the filing room could be put
to the use for which it existed. Files were all over the floor. It was virtually
impossible to locate a file or appeal record. As such, lawyers were asked to
re-file documents causing more expense and more time.”
Within two and half months of becoming President, Justice Zaki worked with his
registry staff to sort out the mess. Credit should also go to the staff who
slaved on the project, working after hours and giving up their weekends, says
the judge.
“As a result, today, the files and records are computer coded and can be easily
accessed and traced. When you remove a record from the room, there's a trace on
it,” adds the judge.
It is learnt that while chaos reigned with 13 filing clerks, peace reigns today
with only two clerks manning the system. As a result, the government has saved
some RM200,000 in employing new staff because the 11 clerks have now been
deployed to more gainful work.
Justice Zaki has also encouraged urgent applications to be treated as appeals
proper, to speedily dispose off matters generally, and interlocutory matters
especially.
“The approach under previous administrations was 'join the queue' no matter how
urgent the matter or how simple it might be,” says the judge, adding that those
who took the initiative to treat urgent applications as appeals proper were
‘punished.’
There is a rule that allows for this approach to be employed with regard to
urgent appeals but no previous CJ or President had allowed judges to use that
rule.
Contrast that to last week in the Court of Appeal where most of the applications
were for extension of time to file the appeal record. Many of these cases
concerned interlocutory applications that the High Court had either denied or
allowed, for example, summary judgment applications, applications to amend the
pleadings or a stay of proceedings in the High Court.
The panel under the chairmanship of Justice Sri Ram converted many of these
applications to proper appeals so that the trial of the action need not be
delayed.
“The court could do this because the President encourages such measures,” says
the judge.
While Lim says Justice Zaki's attempt to shake up the registry is a positive
move, the judge adds wryly: “Justice Zaki is very unpopular with the indolent.
The hardworking get along well with him.”
The other areas in which Justice Zaki has brought timely change to are:
>DISPOSAL of leave applications – taking off from Justice Abdul Malek's leave
applications committee (which would only fix a hearing date if it first rejected
leave) that cleared 1,700 applications in six months from a backlog of 2,000 in
2004, he has directed that all such applications be disposed off in weeks;
>PENDING criminal appeals – getting lawyers and the Attorney General's Chambers
to indicate in a form online whether the appeal is against conviction and
sentence or sentence alone so he can prioritise them because the latter takes
shorter time to hear; and
>ENCOURAGING judges to deliver extempore (off the cuff) decisions – he made
available a digital CRT system available for use in one Court of Appeal
courtroom on April 21. Since then, panels chaired by Justice Sri Ram, who is
famous for delivering extempore decisions, have taken advantage of this.
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