1988 crisis : A legacy that still haunts the nation

Yesterday was as usual. Skipped up 8-10AM class because I was overslept. Besides spending the time of doing assignment and goofing around Dataran Pahlawan to look for my cousin's birthday prezzie(we ended up buying Roxy gigantic pencil case), I spend the rest of the hours reading good news of the announcement of the judicial commission. Here, I made a review.


Two decades had gone. The dark era of the judiciary since the dismissal of the Lord President, Tun Salleh Abbas, along with the grievances of his five other contemporaries back in 1988 is still an uproar. Yesterday, with the announcement of the Judicial Commission and the recognitions of the contributions by the 'long-aggrieved judges' by PakLah, with the hope of renewing the people's trust in the judiciary during the Bar Council dinner yesterday; the guests, other members from the legal fraternity and even the 'rakyat' gave thunderous cheers for the moves, notating the end of the dark era in our judiciary system. But a question arose out from my curiosity, how far could it guaranteed the light at the end of the tunnel?

Among the proposal for the Judicial Commission is to make the process of appointing, nominating, and promoting judges more transparent and representative. Our current governments had also agreed to give ex-gratia payment to those six judgement, namely Tun Salleh Abbas, Tan Sri Azmi Kamaruddin, Datuk George Seah, Tan Sri Wan Hamzah, and the representatives of the late Tan Sri Eusoffe Abdoolcader as well as the late Tan Sri Wan Suleiman. These payments might be inferred as a recognition that 'something wrong' took place in 1988. These six peoples were heroes in the battle to uphold the dignity and the independence of the judiciary, which had been tarnished by the previous government and the infamous maha-zalim.

Ambiga Sreenevasan, representing the Bar Council, applauded the moves, contending that these are the essence of what the Bar had been fighting for years.
"Tonight, we called a spade a spade, so now we can move on."

Tun Salleh Abbas praised the moves, saying "God had answered and give him a moral victory which translates to a legal victory."

But the recognition falls short of tendering apology. Although Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, the de facto Law Minister had urged the present government to apologize for the sacking of these judges, I personally believe that it's not the present government who had to apologize, it was the mistakes of the maha-zalim. He is the one who had to apologize for his atrocities and misuse of powers. In addition of setting-up the judicial commission and the ex-gratia payment towards these legal heroes, the government should have to move another step forward:to charge and convict the-one-who-shall-be-accountable for his misdemenaours, for abusing his powers, for corrupting the doctrine of separation of powers, and for divesting the judiciary's autonomy.

As this is only a first step, much more needs to be done. The effectiveness of the commission must be measured in its implementation, ie the composition and transparency. Thus, the government could only maintain the status quo of the dark era if the member of the commission is proposed like the the correct,correct,correct man.

I went over to read the news from the non-mainstream media. The above informations were acquired from NST, The Star and Bernama. I always think that by reading informations from one party only,I could not the weighed the truthfulness of the news. So, to articulate a fair and impartial views(though cannot guaranteed 100% about it), I also read the news from Harakah,Malaysiakini, SUARAM Website, Aliran, and the blogs of Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang:


1) PAS President, Dato' Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, applauded the moves as well. However, the government should have apologized earlier than this time to these six real judiciary heroes.(Harakah, 19 April)

2) SUARAM also welcomed the Judicial Comission, claiming that the most meaningful measures that the government can take is to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate the whole judicial crisis in 1988, especially on whether the then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had abused his powers.

3) Lim Kit Siang, in his blog, said that he was disappointed with the Paklah's speech, because he had expected, much much more, announced by PakLah. The “contributions, pain and loss” of the six wronged judges cannot be equated with mere currency that the ex gratia payment is grossly inadequate. The six wronged judges deserve a full and proper recompense.

4) Anwar Ibrahim in his blog - 'Kenapa sukar memohon maaf?'. In Bernama Najib said that the ex-gratia payment is not an apology. He emphasized again that the commission has merely an advisory capacity. The final authority still lies with the prime minister to make the formal recommendation to the YDPA.

5) Aliran also welcomed the commission, but in a sarcastic remarks, contending that it was the Barisan Nasional that destroyed the judiciary in its desire to make it subservient to the Executive. In this scheme of things, questionable judges were appointed and promoted so that they would be beholden to the Executive.

Reading all of these things, made me contemplating for a while. If the Commission is merely an advisory body, the journey along the dark tunnel might be long again. The light might be far-reaching. More steps and amendments must be taken by the government to reach for the lights.

I was touched by the words of Salleh Abas when interviewed by the reporters:
"I’ve suffered so much in the last 20 years, so much so I ran away from the public. I found solace in farming. I talked to monkeys, birds and wild boars. I asked them not to disturb my plants."