I WOULD like to refer to my article published in The Malaysian Insight on November 19, 2018: Confidence in the Malaysian judiciary.

On December 2, 2019, the Parliamentary Caucus on Reform and Governance led by Anwar Ibrahim agreed that a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) is needed to investigate judicial misconduct.

The advice of Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat to judges when giving her speech after witnessing the appointment of 13 judicial commissioners on November 28, 2019, was they should display loyalty to the rule of law and not superiors

“The loyalty that is expected from you is allegiance to defend the principle of the separation of powers, independence of the judiciary and uphold the rule of law… This includes whether the judge can manage and dispose of cases, has good judicial temperament and produces quality written judgments.”

It is indeed much awaited news that an RCI on the judiciary may finally see the light of the day.

To eradicate corruption, you must, firstly, have a clean judiciary.

It is not good enough to have the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) on the police, having politicians declare their assets, tightening procurement procedures for military assets, etc, without cleaning up the judiciary, the place where justice and integrity should be exemplary to the whole nation.

Otherwise, how can you hope to bring corrupt politicians, police, civil servants and others to justice?

As I have written in my previous article that there have been complaints by both the plaintiffs and defendants, lawyers as well as judges, that there are corrupt judges who will give judgements favourable to whoever could give them enough incentive and their number is not that small.

The matter has even been brought up by Court of Appeal Judge, Dr Hamid Sultan Abu Backer, in his 63-page affidavit containing allegations of judicial interference.

It must have pained him to have to take this step to expose the decline in justice and integrity of the judiciary.

In setting up the RCI, the investigation should concentrate on the upper tiers of the judiciary, as suggested earlier on in the year, and the lower courts because they are easier to corrupt.

The rationale is judges in the lower courts may rationalise that if they consciously erred in their judgment, plaintiffs and defendants could appeal to the higher courts.

The RCI should concentrate on corrupt judges, and those inefficient and incompetent.

Judges are appointed to dispense justice and if they are not well versed in the field of law or conscientious of his or her work, how can they dispense justice with integrity?

Some of these known cases include judges who fell asleep when the court was in session, judges who trivialise a case brought to court, judges who erred glaringly in their judgements and judges who constantly delay their cases – “Justice delayed is justice denied”.

Judges such as these give very little assurance that they are competent, impartial, have respect for justice and are interested in their jobs.

All these incidences contradict the chief justice’s expectations, that is “the judge can manage and dispose of cases, has good judicial temperament and produces quality written judgments”.

I hope the chief justice will, use her own initiative and set up a team to investigate judges.

As the saying goes, talk is cheap and as long as the Chief Justice’s words are not translated into actions, the corrupt and incompetent judges will continue to get away with it and cause harm to the righteous parties.

The public is then justified to have little faith in our judiciary.

I hope the RCI will be set up soon and the chief justice will take action to reassure the public. I have already given my suggestion on how this could be done in my earlier article.

In order to clean up corruption, it is utmost important that the judges are of impeccable reputation in order to be able to dispense the due justice.

The sooner our judiciary be cleaned up, the faster we will be able to tackle our corruption problem in the country. – December 12, 2019.

* Teh Yik Koon is an academic specialising in Criminology and Sociology

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.