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Monday, January 12, 2015

No basis to claim judicial appointment body acts arbitrarily, says top judge

Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria says there is a need to attract the best and brightest of the legal profession to judicial office. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, January 11, 2015.Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria says there is a need to attract the best and brightest of the legal profession to judicial office. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, January 11, 2015.
Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria dismissed suggestions that the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) acted arbitrarily, saying that the best legal brains in the Bar and government had been appointed as judicial officers.
He said the need to attract the best and brightest of the legal profession to judicial office was simply because of the vital role played by judges in ensuring the rule of law was carried our faithfully.
"The dynamics of the case load in the courts are now vastly different from what they were in the days gone by," Arifin, who is also JAC chairman, said yesterday.
But the nation's top judge disregarded this, saying the appointments process could not be conducted in a public forum.
Arifin said there was more transparency since the formation of the JAC compared with appointments done before 2009.
The JAC members consist of five judges of the Federal Court and four eminent people appointed by the prime minister after consulting the stakeholders.
Previously, the chief justice, after consulting the Court of Appeal president and the Chief Judges of Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak submitted names of candidates to the prime minister who then forwarded the list to the Conference of Rulers.
He said there was considerably more diversity in the appointment of judges and more people from the Bar had also been appointed.
"The statistics will bear this out. The suggestion that the JAC acts arbitrarily lacked credibility and cast doubt," he added.
Arifin said nowadays there were high number of legal practitioners in the bench because nearly one-third of the 28 Court of Appeal judges were from the Bar. 
Arifin, however, conceded that some from the Bar declined to join the bench because "they were quite well paid" as lawyers.
Bar Council president Christopher Leong said in his speech that there was a need to review the working conditions of judges, including their remuneration and the resources allocated to them in the performance of their duties and financial autonomy to have a truly independent judiciary.
He also suggested that it was also timely to review and increase the retirement age for judges in the appellate courts.
Currently, the retirement age is 66 years.
"The retirement age in other Commonwealth jurisdictions vary. It may, however, be of interest to note that the retirement age for judges in the appellate courts in some of these jurisdictions ranges from 70 years to 75 years.”
He said an increase in the retirement age for judges would contribute to attracting more practitioners to join the bench.
"Very often, a lawyer who proceeds to the bench would likely not qualify for a full pension upon retirement at the current age for retirement.”
- TMI

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