Sultan Azlan Shah calls for judicial reform

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NewsFocus: Sultan Azlan Shah calls for judicial reform

By V. Anbalagan, Sonia Ramachandran and Evangeline Majawat

30 October 2007

"It is time for the judiciary to regain the public's confidence and bring back the glory years." KUALA LUMPUR: The Sultan of Perak Sultan Azlan Shah yesterday called for major reforms in the judiciary.

He said it was time for the judiciary to regain the public's confidence and bring back the glory years. For this, he added, mere cosmetic changes were not enough.

Sultan Azlan Shah said recent reports about "disturbing events" relating to the judiciary, together with other serious criticisms against it were cause for concern.

"I am driven nostalgically to look back to a time when our judiciary was the pride of the region and our neighbours spoke admiringly of our legal system.

"We were then second to none and the judgments of our courts were quoted confidently in other common law jurisdictions," said Sultan Azlan Shah, a former Lord President, in his opening address at the 14th Malaysian Law Conference.

He said there was no reason why judges, with the security of tenure they enjoyed under the Constitution, could not discharge their duties impartially, confidently and competently.

Judges, said Azlan, had to be both independent and competent. Therefore, he said, judges had to piously resist the lure of socialising with business personages and other well-connected people.

"They may discover at their peril that they have compromised themselves in the cases that come before them with the unedifying spectacle of recusal applications.

"Nothing destroys more the confidence the general public, or the business community has in the judiciary than the belief that the judge was biased when he decided a case, or that the judge would not be independent where powerful individuals or corporations are the litigants before him," he said.

Confidence in the judiciary may also be eroded where the business community perceived incompetence in decision-making, said Sultan Azlan Shah.

"Our attempts to establish ourselves as a leading financial and commercial centre will fail if we do not have a competent judiciary to decide on complex commercial disputes.

"In this regard, it is of utmost importance that the foreign investors have faith in the competence and integrity of our judiciary," he said.

Foreign investors, he added, would also expect a speedy resolution of their cases before the courts as delays caused loss of profits.

Sultan Azlan Shah said Malaysia ranked 63 among 178 economies in a recent World Bank survey on resolution of commercial disputes, published in the report entitled Doing Business 2008.

"A similar report by the US State Department warns American businessmen to be wary of the slow process of adjudication of cases before Malaysian courts.

"This is indeed a poor reflection on our courts," he said.

Countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong with similar legal systems and laws, and whose judges and lawyers were trained like those here were ranked among the best in the world in the surveys, with Hong Kong placed first and Singapore fourth.

"The reason is obvious. These countries have undertaken major reforms in their court structure and procedures and have introduced more efficient and transparent commercial courts so as to attract the foreign investor.

"Maybe it is also time for us to consider such changes in our legal system and introduce a strong central commercial court in Putrajaya as in London, with specially trained judges who are familiar with the new and ever changing commercial laws and developments, so that we too can become the centre for the resolution of commercial disputes in the region," he said.

Mere cosmetic changes, said Sultan Azlan Shah, would not suffice.

"If we wish to achieve this goal, it is imperative that major reforms are introduced," he said.

The inevitable consequence of incompetence, said Sultan Azlan Shah, was delayed judgments and a backlog in cases.

"Only last week, I read in the latest Malaysian law report that a case of medical negligence involving the death of a lawyer took 23 years to reach the Court of Appeal.

"Similarly, there have been reports that some judges have taken years to write their grounds of judgments involving accused persons who had been convicted and were languishing in death row.

"Surely, such a situation cannot be tolerated in any progressive nation."

Sultan Azlan Shah said judges in Malaysia had to be mindful that they were appointed judges for all Malaysians.

"They must be sensitive to the feelings of all parties, irrespective of race, religion or creed, and be careful not to bring a predisposed mind to an issue before them that is capable of being misconstrued by the watching public or segments of them."

Sultan Azlan Shah also said he was reminded of a proud accolade of the late former Lord President Tun Suffian Hashim in his Braddell Memorial Lecture in 1982: " ...while we judges cannot help being Malay or Chinese or Indian; or being Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu or whatever, we strive not to be too identified with any particular race or religion — so that nobody reading our judgment with our name deleted could, with confidence, identify our race or religion and so that the various communities, are assured that we will not allow their rights to be trampled underfoot".

He said it was in the judiciary that the people placed their trust and hope.

"It is my earnest hope that the Malaysian judiciary will regain the public's confidence and it will once again be held in the high esteem as it once was held," said Sultan Azlan Shah.

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