Hasnah, Terrirudin are laudable appointments

 

I was pleased to see Justice Hasnah Hashim appointed Chief Judge of Malaya (CJM) and Ahmad Terrirudin Salleh rise to become a Federal Court judge on Tuesday.

Hasnah is an excellent choice. In the Court of Appeal, I found her to be a good listener. She never disrupted a lawyer’s submissions.

The skills and vast experience she acquired when serving as court registrar will stand her in good stead.

As CJM, her administrative authority encompasses all the high and subordinate courts across Malaya. It is indeed a mammoth task, not one for mere seat warmers.

Congratulations also to Terrirudin. Rumour has it that he is being primed to hold one of the top administrative positions in the judiciary. Suffice it to say, I am not surprised.

Terrirudin was a senior assistant registrar (SAR) when I first encountered him in the High Court many years ago. Faced with a convoluted application, my first impression on entering his chambers was that he would have great difficulty understanding the case and delivering justice.

To my surprise he politely invited both counsel to sit, and went on to summarise the facts and submissions of the case with meticulous precision.

This was not ordinary practice and indicated to me that he was very hands-on in his approach to hearings, a rare practice among judicial adjudicators at the time, and probably even now. He then delivered his decision immediately, stating the grounds – another rarity among adjudicators.

I left his chambers with an inspired feeling that he would one day turn out to be a judge of the apex court, and he has.

I later came to know that Terrirudin was made acting registrar of the Federal Court when the chief registrar retired. He must have been no more than 40 years old at the time – a very young age for such a senior position, even if it was only in an “acting” capacity.

Sometime after the appointment, I received a call from him telling me that then chief justice (CJ) Ahmad Fairuz Abdul Halim wanted to know whether I was still interested in being made a judicial commissioner.

I was stunned. A senior federal court judge had approached me about the position five years earlier. I duly sent in my CV as requested but, unfortunately, the judge passed away within a few months. Nothing further happened until Terrirudin’s call. After a slight pause, I said I would accept the position if offered.

Terrirudin then told me to stay close to my fax machine. It was about 11am. I waited until after lunch but no fax came through. The fax eventually came, and I took my oath of office the very next day.

While serving as a judicial commissioner, I came to know that Terrirudin was the blue-eyed boy of the then CJ. When Ahmad Fairuz retired, Terrirudin moved on to various other postings, including one at the Industrial Court which would give him invaluable experience as a trial judge.

I would later learn that the judiciary was keen to bring him back to the courts since he was an efficient administrator. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Malaysian judiciary has been gifted at least three appellate court judges who have never served as High Court judges. Both Salleh Abas and Zaki Azmi went on to assume the very top post, and then there was the irreplaceable Gopal Sri Ram.

All three showed robust achievements in office. On top of being a great judge, Zaki was also an efficient administrator who pressured everyone to clear the backlog of cases and diligently write their judgments.

So, congratulations to the Madani government for selecting two deserving candidates, and the 23 other judges who were also appointed on Tuesday.

But were they selected in the proper way?

Recently, there have been reports about delays in appointing persons to important posts within the judiciary.

Shockingly, the post of CJM was left vacant for more than eight months. Many other judicial appointments were also delayed.

Under the law, all appointments should have been recommended by the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), so it was quite disheartening to learn from news reports that the JAC was left without a quorum until earlier this month.

That is not a good sign.

It suggests that the appointments of Hasnah, Terrirudin and others may not have gone through the JAC and all the procedural niceties prescribed by law and good governance. At best, they may have been rushed through.

Following the 2018 election, not all judicial appointments were scrutinised by the JAC. Some were pushed through by the executive, a violation of the separation of powers doctrine.

Recommendations by the rulers to scale down the executive’s role in the appointment of judges, made two years ago, have yet to be acted on by the unity government.

The proposal was designed to reduce the patent control which the executive has had on the judiciary for several decades.

The rulers had called for institutions such as the Malaysian Bar, Sabah Law Society, Advocates Association of Sarawak and a parliamentary select committee to have a say in the appointment of judges.

It is extremely disappointing to note that the legal industry and the various other stakeholders of justice have failed to push through reforms as directed by the rulers.

Should the rulers then invoke Article 38 of the Federal Constitution and act on their own accord to preserve the rule of law?

The correct people may have been appointed, but the end cannot justify the means.

After all, as judges and lawyers are apt to say, justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. By the same token, judges must not only be appointed, they must be appointed properly. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.