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How did Nazri (Protocol No. 16) become Minister for Ahmad
Fairuz, when CJ is No. 11 on protocol list?
by Lim Kit Siang
Malaysia is still reeling from the many shocks reverberating from the expose of
the Lingam Tape – confirming what had been widely talked about concerning the
perversion of the course of justice in the fixing of judicial appointments and
court judgments but also from the responses from the Executive and Judiciary.
Both the Executive and the Judiciary had come out of the Lingam Tape scandal
with their reputation in tatters.
The thunderous ten-day silence of the Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh
Abdul Halim has completely drowned out the puny denial which the Minister in the
Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz had made on the Chief
Justice’s behalf.
In the 50-year history of the nation, one top judicial officer had been sacked
from his office but he retained national and international respect for his
honour and integrity. However, two other top judicial officers who completed
their term of office did so under a black cloud and nobody would have thought
there would be a third top judicial officer who would be exiting from office in
ignominy.
The Executive on its part had brought the whole system of democratic governance
into a tragic-comedy of errors – not least of which was the decision to set up a
so-called “Independent Panel” to investigate into the authenticity of the Lingam
Tape and headed by someone who is tainted by his role in the “mother” of all
judicial crisis in the past 19 years, the 1988 Judicial Crisis.
Even now, the term of reference of the so-called “Independent Panel” into the
Lingam Tape has not been fully made public. What is there so secretive that its
actual term of reference is still being kept a secret?
But it is Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department
in charge of law and justice, who has wrought the greatest harm to the system of
governance in Malaysia.
Nazri publicly claiming that he is “Minister” for the Chief Justice when none of
the five Prime Ministers in 50 years had dared to make such a claim shows how
lowly the judiciary had fallen and the contempt meted out to the doctrine of
separation of powers.
Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the three branches of government,
the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary are independent and do not infringe
upon each other’s rights and duties – providing an important check and balance
for democratic good governance to avert any form of tyrannical government.
In this system, the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice and the Speaker of
Parliament are meant to be independent and almost equal status as respective
heads of the three branches of government.
This is why in the official protocol list as gazetted, the Prime Minister and
Deputy Prime Minister are listed as No. 6 and 7 respectively after the Yang di
Pertuan Agong, Sultans and royal dignitaries, while the Chief Justice is No. 11,
the President of Senate No. 12, the Dewan Rakyat Speaker No. 13 while Cabinet
Ministers are placed No. 16.
It is therefore most outrageous for Nazri to claim that he is the Minister for
the Chief Justice when even the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, placed
on a higher level than the Chief Justice protocol-wise, cannot make any such
claim.
Protocol wise, the Chief Justice is No. 11 between the Prime Minister (No. 6)
and Parliament Speaker (No. 13) – how did Nazri (No. 16 for Cabinet Ministers)
become Minister for Ahmad Fairuz?
What is shocking is that Ahmad Fairuz is now so subservient to an ordinary
Cabinet Minister, who is five places below him in the official protocol list,
that he dared not even bleat a protest to uphold the dignity of the office of
Chief Justice and the independence and integrity of the Judiciary from any
Executive interference or encroachment!
However, Nazri had not only wrought great damage to the public standing of the
judiciary, the de facto law Minister had also gravely undermined the credibility
of the government with his tirade against the Bar Council and Malaysian lawyers
for their historic march for justice on Wednesday from the Palace of Justice to
the Prime Minister’s Department in Putrajaya and his comment: “There is no
crisis in our judiciary. No crisis, no problems. I don’t seen any scandal.”
Is Nazri seriously suggesting that when some 2,000 lawyers could be so moved as
to be involved in a March for Justice express their long-held and deep-seated
concerns about the rot in the system of justice, Nazri is completely blind and
deaf to such concerns?
And is Nazri typical of all the Cabinet Ministers in the country – for if so,
then the former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was being very kind in
dubbing them as “half-past six Cabinet”!
The 50th Merdeka anniversary has seen many knotty nation-building problems
surfacing in public – including the long-standing rot in the judiciary. The
question is whether the 50th Merdeka anniversary will see the beginning of a new
national resolve to right these generational and historic wrongs or their
further aggravation.
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Circular No 297/2008
