LETTER | I would like to refer to my Malaysiakini article titled “Regaining confidence in the judiciary”, the Dec 2 announcement that the Parliamentary Caucus on Reform and Governance has agreed that a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) needs to be set up to investigate judicial misconduct and the Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat’s advice to judges that they should display loyalty to the rule of law and not superiors.

It is indeed much-awaited news that an RCI on the judiciary may finally see the light of the day.

To eradicate corruption, a clean judiciary is required.

It is not good enough to have the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) on the police, having politicians declare their assets, tightening procurement procedures for military assets, and other initiatives without cleaning up the judiciary.

The judiciary is the place where justice and integrity should be exemplary to the whole nation.

Otherwise, how can one hope to bring corrupt politicians, police, civil servants and others to justice?

As I have written in my previous article, both the plaintiffs and defendants, lawyers as well as judges, have complained that there are corrupt judges who will give favourable judgments to certain parties.

The matter has even been brought up by Court of Appeal Judge Hamid Sultan Abu Backer, in his 63-page affidavit containing allegations of judicial interference.

It must have pained the judge to have to take this step to expose the decline in justice and integrity of the judiciary.

In setting up the RCI, the investigation should not just be concentrated on the upper tiers of the judiciary as suggested earlier, but should also include the lower courts.

The rationale being that judges at the lower courts may rationalise that if they consciously erred in their judgment, there are always higher courts that the plaintiffs and defendants could appeal to.

The RCI should not only concentrate on corrupt judges but also on inefficient and incompetent judges.

Judges are appointed to dispense justice and if one is not well versed in the field of law or one who is not conscientious of his or her work, how could one dispense justice with integrity?

Some of the known cases include judges who fell asleep when the court was in session, those who trivialise a case brought to court, judges who erred glaringly in their judgments and the ones who constantly delay their cases.

Judges such as these give very little assurance that they are competent, impartial, have respect for justice and are interested in their jobs.

All these incidences contradict what the Chief Justice expects of her judges, that is “the judge can manage and dispose of cases, has good judicial temperament and produces quality written judgments.”

I hope the Chief Justice will, in her own initiative, also set up a team to investigate her own judges.

As the saying goes, talk is cheap and as long as the Chief Justice’s words are not translated into action, the corrupt and incompetent judges will continue to get away with it and cause harm to the righteous parties.

The public is then justified to have little faith in our judiciary.

I hope the RCI will be set up soon and the Chief Justice will take action to reassure the public. I have already given my suggestion on how this could be done in my earlier article.

In order to clean up corruption, it is utmost important that the judges are of impeccable reputation in order to be able to dispense the due justice.

The sooner our judiciary be cleaned up, the faster we will be able to tackle our corruption problem in the country.

TEH YIK KOON is the author of the book, “From BMF to 1MDB: A Criminological and Sociological Discussion” which was published prior to GE14.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.