1988 judicial crisis: Quit or be sacked, Dr M told Salleh

1988 judicial crisis: Quit or be sacked, Dr M told Salleh

Sep 18, 06 8:56pm



Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had summoned then Lord President Salleh Abas to his office 18 years ago and told him to either quit or face a tribunal.


Salleh answered that he would not resigned and added that the prime minister “could do what he pleased”.


“I told him I would not resign because if I did, I could not show my face to anyone and I might as well die,” wrote Salleh in his private notes right after the meeting on May 27, 1988.


The notes narrating the meeting was reproduced by the latest edition of Aliran magazine.


Also present at the meeting were then deputy prime minister Ghafar Baba and then chief secretary to the government, Sallehuddin Mohamed.


According to Salleh, Mahathir told him that he was asked to step down because of a letter which he had written to the King regarding the state of relationship between the judiciary and the executive.


“I told him that I wrote the letter simply because judges had informed me that they were concerned about the present situation and asked to express their views through me,” wrote Salleh.


“Mahathir then said that I made speeches indicating that I am biased and I am not qualified to sit in the Umno case.”


At that time, Umno was facing internal turmoil and a legal suit by party members resulted in the High Court declaring the party illegal.


Salleh had then decided to set up a nine-member Supreme Court to hear the appeal against the disbarring of the party. Meanwhile, Mahathir had also set up another party under the name Umno Baru to assume the role and functions of the illegal Umno.


Salleh said he denied the charges at the meeting with Mahathir.


While Mahathir was levelling these accusations against him, both Ghafar and Sallehuddin sat at the same table without saying a word.


“The prime minister himself, from the beginning to the end, did not even look me in the eyes. He was looking down his table all the time.”


“I could detect Ghafar was strangely silent and Sallehuddin only caught me by the side of his eyes but he too appeared to be subdued. Ghafar kept his head down while Sallehuddin was writing in a notebook.”


No desire to quit


Salleh added that Mahathir promised him all retirement entitlements should he decide to accept his offer to resign.


“I told him that I was entitled to nothing as I was not yet 60. Obviously he was surprised when told I was not 60 yet. Finally, he said that if I did not step down he would institute a judicial tribunal to remove me.


“He said that I could see the Agong if I wanted to and he would not stop me from doing so. I told him I would not be resigning and he could do what he pleased.”


Salleh said that since there were nothing else te be said, he left after shaking the hands of Mahathir, Ghafar and Sallehuddin.


“None of the three looked me straight in my face.”


He said that he was not even accompanied out of the prime minister’s office by his aides and that he had to look for his driver on his own.


At the end of his note, Salleh wrote that he had no desire to quit until he had reached the age of 65.


He had also written a Quranic verse which says:


“No misfortune will fall on us expect what has been decreed by Allah. He is our protector and in whom the believers should place their trust.”


He ended his note: “This passage from the Quran struck my heart as I entered the door of the Prime Minister’s Office and it remained with me during the course of our discussion till the end, and to my exit from his room.”


Calls for judicial review


Mahathir stuck true to his words and set up a special tribunal which tried Salleh on charges of misconduct and for questioning constitutional amendments that seriously eroded the powers of the judiciary.


Salleh was then sacked.


Two of five supreme court judges - George Seah and Wan Sulaiman Pawanteh - who had ruled that the tribunal was convened unconstitutionally were sacked along with Salleh after being found guilty of misconduct by another tribunal.


Some have described the dismissal of the top judges from the Supreme Court - then the country's highest court, now renamed as Federal Court - as Malaysia’s darkest hours in its judicial history.


A month ago, Salleh broke his silence and supported the Bar Council’s call in reviewing the 1988 judicial crisis.


Last week, government backbencher Zaid Ibrahim also called for a review of the issue, adding that “he (Salleh) was not sacked because he wrote a letter to the King or because of his speech delivered in Universiti Malaya. It was because he wanted a nine-judge panel to hear the Umno case.”