New Law Minister a hope for judicial reforms

Judicial reforms : let’s start cracking

The newly-appointed de facto Law Minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim,should be commended for his bold suggestion that the government has to apologise to the victims of 1988 judicial crisis.These senior judges including the the then Lord President were humiliated,disgraced and sacked from their positions for standing up to defend the truth and the integrity of the judiciary. The fact that such calls for apology and dissenting voices are being tolerated augurs well for the future of the nation as they were unheard of in the past.

Although there are those would want nothing short of a total review of the crisis but an apology would suffice as the unfortunate tragedy occurred 20 years ago and digging into the past may be too painful and damaging. It is time to put the past behind and focus our attention on revamping the judiciary to return it to its past glory and reputation.

Zaid has promised many changes which are very encouraging and we hope he can achieve all of them. Among his priorities should be to restore the independence of the judiciary and establishing transparency in the appointment and promotion of judges. Political meddling has had disastrous effects on the judiciary as it compromises on its impartiality in delivering justice.

The system of promotion and appointment of new judges should be another area that has to be seriously looked into as the existing system leaves much to be desired. It gives absolute power to the executive without the need for discussion and consultation with any parties, not even the Chief Justice.

Judges appointed should be of high caliber, integrity and morality. Their loyalty should not be to politicians and businessmen but only to the rakyat.Their judgment must be based solely on the provisions in the laws of the country not sentiments or inducements.

The rakyat have given the Barisan Nasional (BN) a new mandate to rule but with a smaller majority which goes to show that they are not happy with its handling of the affairs of the nation. The BN should take it not only as a lesson but a challenge to review, revamp and strive to improve its services to the people and actively address the numerous problems that plague the nation.

The appointment of Zaid as the new Law Minister may be one of the many positive measures taken by the government to heal the ailing judiciary but there are many more that need to be addressed with great urgency.These include corruption,high cost of living, ethnic polarizations, high crime rate and the ‘little Napoleons’, just to name a few.

It is sad that after more than 2 weeks since the elections there is so much in-fighting and power struggle within the ruling party.It is time for the Prime Minister and his new cabinet to seek ways to get over with their political bickering amicably without further delay and get down working seriously to address the problems facing the nation.

Dr.ChrisAnthony