JUDGES are addressed as “My Honour”, ” My Lord” to reflect the very high esteem of their office. The public are conditioned to look upon them as the bastions of justice, as upright persons, as individuals who would use their own minds, uninfluenced by anyone, to make judgments “without fear or favour”, regardless of the high office of the person(s) they are passing judgment upon.

Public confidence in the great ideals of the judiciary has come crashing down like a mountain after the 65 page affidavit by Court of Appeal Judge Hamid Sultan Abu Backer, washing the very dirty linen of the judiciary in public. 

This washing of the judiciary’s dirty linen is most welcome. It must take a lot of strength to expose his learned “My Lords”. For this the nation should be indebted to him for without such exposure the rot would have continued. It’s now left to be seen whether the PH government will sanitise the Palace of Justice. 

I don’t agree with the chief justice that no action could be taken against the recalcitrant judge as he has retired. He is drawing a pension and enjoying some other perks. Why should he continue doing this if he did not serve the nation honestly? If he assisted crooks to defraud the government? 

Criminal charges could be brought against him for being an accomplice and facilitating the fraudulent claims through shadow-play contracts. 

He was surely not doing that singlehandedly. There must have been others behind the scenes. Who are they? What roles did they play? Shouldn’t there be an inquiry to get to the bottom of these questions? Some of them may still be sitting in the high chairs.

The call for an RCI is therefore very pertinent and should not be dismissed. Dismissing it would mean the government is not sincere about bringing about changes, about cleaning up the corrupted government machinery which the PM himself acknowledged. And of all places, corruption in the fortress of justice, the imposing Palace of Justice.  

If one of the three arms of the nation is so tainted (I don’t mean everyone in it, but the bad apples give a bad name to the whole), a proper house-cleaning job should be done to rid of all the filth. An RCI would be the best way to do it. It would reveal the masterminds and unravel the tangle of tentacles which might reach some of those still in service. If any tainted judges are still in service, they must be discovered and removed. Judge Hamid Sultan has things to tell an RCI which he is unable to say otherwise. Surely he has names to disclose which he cannot do other than in an RCI. Why should he be not allowed to do that? Why should the public not know those names? 

Thinking of it, no wonder the Kleptocrat is going about smiling and without any worries. He has “friends” in the judiciary he can rely upon to find no fault with him, to find that the billions were indeed donated by the Arabs. 

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insight.