Beh Lih Yi
Oct 1, 07 11:39am
Why did former lord president Hamid Omar refuse to withdraw from
chairing a tribunal that led to the removal of his boss, Salleh Abas,
during the 1988 judicial crisis?
The answer was revealed by Param Cumaraswamy - the immediate past
president of the Bar Council during the 1988 crisis - at a forum in
Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.
In 1988, Salleh, the former lord president, was found guilty of
judicial misconduct by a special tribunal chaired by Hamid. At that
time, Hamid was acting lord president and next in line to succeed
Salleh.
Strong objections, especially from the Bar Council, were raised then
over Hamid's role in the tribunal.
At Saturday's forum, attended by some 250 people, Param disclosed
what had transpired at a meeting between a Bar Council delegation led
by him and Hamid.
"We went to see Hamid to advise him not to accept the position for
the obvious reason that he was next in line. I advised Hamid 'please
don't (accept), you will cause a very ugly embarrassment to the
judiciary," he said.
"His (Hamid's) response was 'Param, if I don't accept, I will be
sacked. If I am sacked, will you or your Bar Council compensate my
losses of remuneration?'" he added.
He further quoted Hamid as telling him, "Param, if you want, you can
go and advise the King."
Param, who is also the former UN special rapporteur on the
independence of judges and lawyers, said he retorted by telling Hamid
that the latter was in a better position to advise the King.
According to him, this conversation with Hamid was never made public
or documented until now.
Judges axed
He also explained that the Bar Council president at the time, Raja
Aziz Addruse, could not be part of the delegation in the meeting with
Hamid since the latter was representing Salleh.
Param was one of the four speakers at the forum titled 'From Nurin to
chief justice: A collapse of law and order?'. It was organised by the
Institute for Policy Research.
The sacking of Salleh in 1988 has been described as the
darkest moment in Malaysia's judicial history.
Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had then set up the special
tribunal which tried Salleh on charges of misconduct and for
questioning the constitutional amendments that seriously eroded the
powers of the judiciary.
Two of five supreme court judges - George Seah and Wan Sulaiman Pawan
Teh - who had ruled that the tribunal was convened unconstitutionally
were also sacked.
The supreme court, which has been renamed as the Federal Court, was
then the highest court in the country.
After an 18-year silence, Salleh broke his silence in August last
year and came out strongly to support the Bar Council's call for a
review of the 1988 judicial crisis.
However, the government has rejected this.
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