Chief Justice points to low backlog as proof of strategy

Zaki: When I took office, one of my main objectives was to reduce or even eliminate the backlogs.

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 16 — The various strategies taken by the judiciary to expedite the disposal of civil and commercial cases have resulted in a drastic drop in backlog cases.

Chief Justice Tun Zaki Azmi hopes that by the end of 2011, there will be no old cases left as all the cases registered in 2000 are waiting to be disposed of.

He said in December 2008, according to the statistics kept by the judiciary, there were 93,523 pending civil cases at all high courts in the country, but the number was reduced to 36,526 by the end of October, this year.

Zaki said the statistics also showed that there were 94,554 civil cases pending at the sessions courts in December 2008, but were reduced to 49,528, while 156,053 cases at the magistrate’s courts dropped to 82,835 during the same period.

“When I took office, one of my main objectives was to reduce or even eliminate the backlogs. I am glad to say the judiciary managed to reduce the number of pending cases,” he said in his paper entitled “Courts and Commerce: The Way Ahead” at the 11th Ahmad Ibrahim Memorial Lecture, here, today.

The Ahmad Ibrahim Memorial Lecture is a yearly lecture series to commemorate Tan Sri Ahmad Ibrahim, a learned man of the laws, of his contributions to the development of the civil and Islamic legal systems in the country.

In his lecture, Zaki said the judiciary had taken various steps to expedite the disposal of cases, including he personally conducting spot checks at the courts to see the conditions of the courts and filing rooms, and appointing managing judges to assist him on the status of cases under their supervision.

The Chief Justice also said that to ensure the cases went on smoothly, the courts were very strict in granting postponements, and he described postponements as the culprit for the delay in disposing of cases.

Zaki also said that since the new commercial courts at the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex started operating in September last year, the courts had succesfully disposed of cases within nine months from the date of filing.

He said from 289 cases filed in September last year, there were only a balance of four cases as at October this year.

Zaki said by March next year, he hoped all the original commercial courts in Kuala Lumpur would be closed, and the same target was also aimed for all the old civil courts as now there were the new civil courts.

He said that without doubt the cases registered at the new civil courts were moving at a pace which was incomparable with any courts in the Common Law countries as the cases could be disposed of within less than a year.

Zaki said, while civil and commercial cases were moving well, criminal cases, for some reasons, were not moving fast.

He said the government had agreed to the establishment of specialised criminal courts to handle commercial and street crimes. — Bernama