Former law minister Zaid Ibrahim believes Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria erred in asking the public not to denounce judges as heartless and hurl insults at them without reading the judgments.
"According to CJ we cannot call judges names. If they are heartless what do we call them? He is got it all wrong," he tweeted.
Without mincing words, Zaid also said for far too long, the wrong kind of judges have been placed on the pedestal.
"That's why we have had corrupt judges and coward judges.
"We must describe our leaders, including judges, accurately and with respect of course. But stop fudging, otherwise nothing will change," he added.
Zaid has also courted trouble for expressing anger over the Court of Appeal judgment in the conversion tussle involving K Pathmanathan@Mohd Ridhuan Abdullah and his ex-wife Indira Gandhi.
The former minister has been summoned by the police over his article that criticised the majority judgment that issues regarding Muslim conversion are exclusively the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court.
Indira had previously obtained a decision to quash the conversion certificates of her three children, which was done by her ex-husband without her knowledge.
Meanwhile, Zaid also zeroed in on Arifin's statement that Malaysian courts cannot adopt western human rights standard.
"How about using human as standard," said the ex-minister.
In his speech at the launching of the Legal Year in Kuala Lumpur, Arifin said the judiciary welcomed criticism.
He said while the judiciary welcomed criticism, the people should read the judgments before throwing brickbats.
"But they don't do that, as they call us names, like being heartless... That is uncalled-for as this is not criticism.
"That is running down the judiciary without reading the judgments," he added. -Mkini
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