Chief Justice Eusoff Chin has been told that it was inappropriate to holiday with the counsel of a prominent business tycoon, Minister in Prime Minister's Department Rais Yatim said in an interview with Australia's Radio National last Thursday.

"Certainly such socialising, shall I say, is not in keeping with the proper behaviour of a judicial personality and we have intimated to the Chief Justice that this is a behaviour improper, and this has been intimated to him in no uncertain terms," Rais said.

Photographs showing Eusoff, lawyer V. K. Lingam and their families holidaying together in New Zealand in December 1994 can be found on the Internet.


Eusoff and wife (left) and Lingam and wife in New Zealand.


Lingam represents Berjaya Group's chief Vincent Tan. Both he and Tan were also photographed while on vacation with Attorney-General Mohtar Abdullah and their respective families in Italy in 1994.

Rais, who was in Canberra last week for the 2nd Australia-Malaysia Conference at the Australian National University, also said in the interview that he was aware of problems within the judiciary, but proper enquiries and political will were needed before changes could be made.

"The system placed on the judiciary of Malaysia need certain re-examination, and for Malaysia now perhaps to be inculcated with a new sense of value system," he said.

"We could embark upon certain rejuvenation within the judiciary. But what they are, this has to be left for further study and for further verification," he said.

Asked what Malaysia's perspective was of its faults and shortcomings, Rais replied, "Like a fish in water it does not know when it is out of water until it is taken out, but to go along with the criticism that the judiciary needs some new things, I agree."

He, however, added that change will have to come largely from the legal community.

"I would urge that the lawyers of Malaysia be more forthright from now on and form formulative committees to inform the government as to what is best suited for the future of Malaysia," he said.

The defacto law minister added that his previous criticism of the judiciary still prevailed but "there must be a political will within the larger group of Malaysian politics" to bring about change.

Rais wrote a scathing book about the conflict between the rule of law and executive power in Malaysia in 1995, titled "Freedom under Executive Power in Malaysia - A Study of Executive Supremacy".

He said then that the removal of Tun Salleh Abas as Lord President "was a political one although the modus operandi might seem to have followed constitutional arrangement".

"The removal of the Lord President, unprecedented as it was in the free democratic world, stands out as the biggest scandal that Malaysia has thus far faced in the contest of the executive wanting to assert supremacy.

"The whole episode of removing the Lord President was based on the desire of the executive to have an untrammeled say in the direction the judiciary should take in future.

"The message is clear: Judges are only allowed to interpret the law in the way that the executive had determined through the language passed by Parliament," wrote Rais.

Meanwhile, Rais also told Radio National in the interview which went on air last night, that the delay in handing down the appeal decision in Pillai's case regarding a RM10 million award made against the veteran journalist was "not certainly within the reasonable time period".

Pillai has been waiting for a Federal Court judgement on his appeal for more than two years in the controversial case where he was sued by Tan for an article he wrote in the Malaysian Industry magazine about the business tycoon's media ambitions.


Lingam and wife (far left), Mohtar and wife (centre) and Tan and wife in Italy.


"That is not an ordinary time span I must admit, and I myself is in the category of people that are concerned with the delays in the system in Malaysia," he said.

"And I think this is one of the cases in which the government expresses its opinion to the judiciary to say that something must be done. Just like what we have done for the backlog of cases."

On the recent report released by the International Bar Association and other legal groups entitled "Justice in Jeopardy: Malaysia in 2000", Rais said that its judgement that the Malaysian judiciary is not independent was "esoteric".

"To judge the incidents of Anwar Ibrahim alone and then hand down a judgement by saying that the Malaysian judiciary is not independent... I think is not only esoteric but it is not fair," he said.

The Star yesterday quoted the minister as saying that "the report mostly says that it did not like Malaysia, it did not like justice in Malaysia and had basically smeared Malaysia's good name".

The daily also reported that Rais' Law Co-ordination Committee had carefully studied the report and would present the Cabinet with an appraisal in a week's time. He also said that he forwarded a copy of the report to the Attorney-General's Chambers for comments.

The 121-paged report which was based on a visit to the country in April last year by three top foreign judges and jurists, concluded that the extremely powerful executive in Malaysia had not acted with due regard for the essential elements of a free and democratic society based on the rule of law.

It set out a series of court cases which it said showed that the legal system was being manipulated for political ends, including cases where lawyers had been charged with contempt of court or sedition while defending clients.

It also said problems with the independence of lawyers and judges had only arisen since Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad came to power in 1981.