Five years ago, I worked towards achieving my dreams of becoming a lawyer and today I am a young lawyer in Malaysia. When I first wanted to become a lawyer, I was only five years old. Many people were wondering as to what I understood at that age.

Then when I started growing up, I showed many people that the only reason that I wanted to be a lawyer was to uphold justice and fight for human rights issues.

However, today after achieving my ambition, I am unable to carry out my dream of fighting for justice and human rights. This is merely because the entire political and judicial system in Malaysia has been so much corrupted and rotten after 51 years of independence. The judicial system of Malaysia has got so much red-tape that it can no longer be sustained if it continues to go on the way it is now.

The problem is not caused by the judges or magistrates of the Malaysian judiciary but the fact is many lawyers faces problem with the ground-level employees of the Malaysian government ie, the staff of Malaysian courts.

The lawyers of today need to beg the court staff and walk up and down the courts everyday if they need their files to be moved fast and even just to file a simple document in court. I believe that the system was not like this many years back.

However, the question arises as to why this is happening today when the technology has improved drastically and we are shouting day by day that we want a developed nation status.

We are now busy commenting on the victory of Barack Obama to the extent that our prime minister has stated that anyone can become the Malaysian prime minister. Why are we going so far into dreams of becoming a nation like the US if we are not even correct our own government employees?

An incident that occurred in the courts lately has made me to think that we have failed as a country, we have failed as Malaysia and we also have failed as humans. I was in court one day in order to get my case to be heard early.

I approached a court staff at the counter to meet the person-in-charge of the said matter. I was told by the guy at the counter that it was not his job to look for the person that I was asking for. He bluntly told me that ‘If you so baldy want to see him, go look for him yourself’.

Then he returned to his place without even the courtesy to ask someone else to deal with this matter. I was wondering to myself, is this how a civil servant reacts to a question from the public? Is this how a lawyer is treated in this country by an ordinary employee of the courts? Does this only happen in the courts or in every government sector?

The incident not only irritated me but made me to feel disgusted to be a Malaysian. We are all now fighting for all sorts of freedom without realising that our basic rights as Malaysians are infringed on a daily basis by all sorts of people such as the front-counter staff at the post office, courts, and all other government departments.

I was also thinking to myself that if I, as a Malaysian lawyer, gets a bad treatment in the courts, how are the ordinary citizens of Malaysia treated at the court premises?

And we are continuing to discuss about Barack Obama and freedom when we are not even getting our daily rights properly. What are we going to do in 10 years down the road if the government sector and other departments are going to continue the way they are now?.

I was very happy when I heard a black has taken over the White House. I felt happy and thought to myself that it is now possible that my son or daughter could be leading this country one day.

But after the above incident, I think that it is not only the head of the country that needs to be changed but that the entire country needs a transformation whereby it needs to be done from ground-level up. It is important that this is done soon before it is too late.

It is my hope to see that my country becomes a developed nation but this can only be done if the mentality of Malaysians at all levels is changed.