Fight Cases Based On Merit, Not Just To Attactk Judiciary, Says Former Cj

BANGI (Selangor, Malaysia), Feb 4 (Bernama) - Former Chief Justice Abdul Hamid Mohamad said Friday that court cases should be fought on merit, not just to attack judges or the judiciary. Alluding to a recent case involving an opposition politician where the trial took 88 working days over a period of two years and 10 months, he said the proceedings saw attempts to discredit the judiciary and to question the independence of thejudiciary. During the same period, he said a case involving a former Menteri Besar (Chief Minister) who was charged for corruption took only 19 working days over a period of one year and went on smoothly without much fanfare. And when the person was convicted, he did not even criticise the judge nor judiciary, he said. Similarly, cases involving several personalities including Harun Haji Idris, Haji Abdul Ghani Isha, Zulkifli Abdul Hamid and Mokhtar Hashim were all fought on merit, and did not have elements of judges and the judiciary being attacked, he said at the inaugural Integrity Lecture Series - "Integrity: You Know It But Do You Have It?" at University Tenaga Nasional (Uniten) here Friday. Abdul Hamid, who is also a member of the Judicial Appointments Commission, said the integrity of the judiciary in the country had improved significantly in the last four years. He said efforts were being made to restore the integrity of the judiciary, which dropped to its lowest ebb following the celebrated case involving a lawyer and his taped telephone conversation about a judge. In addition, he said, the courts had also succeeded in reducing backlogged cases and the period taken for the disposal of cases to such an extent that even the World Bank had given a favourable report on the matter. Abdul Hamid, who is also the former Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), said political leaders, top-level administrators and corporate leaders must be serious about combating corruption and must lead by example. "People tend to focus only on the public sector while the private sector escapes attention. "Government or public servants, judges and others must be clean while companies and businessmen need not be clean as they are only to be judged by how much profit they make. That kind of culture has to be changed," he said. Abdul Hamid said politicians, whether they were running the government or in the opposition, should not adopt an attitude that they could be an exception. "In the fight against corruption, no one is special and be an exception, he stressed. -- BERNAMA