Having judges better trained in management will go a long way in enhancing fair and expeditious trials in the country, presenters and participants told a Suhakam-organised forum in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

This will facilitate court proceedings and sharply reduce waiting time, a common grouse among the legal profession.

Highlighting the issue of delay in application hearings at the forum on "The Right to an Expeditious and Fair Trial" a participant, lawyer DP Vijandran, lamented that judges' inefficiency to manage their hearings caused lawyers to waste precious time on their cases.

"Recently I had to wait from 9.15 am to 12.15 pm just to have the judge hear a simple application. Initially I was told by the court clerk that there were many cases and my case may be heard in the afternoon. When I told her that I would come back in the afternoon, I was told that the judge may hear my case in the morning if he finished early.

"So I asked her: Do I have to wait until 12pm to find out if I have to come back in the afternoon, and she said, yes!"

He said such problems could be easily solved if the court divided listed cases into different time slots, which could be announced and checked on the Malaysian Courts official website.

He also said that the problems with delay recur because only ad-hoc or temporary measures are taken to reform the judicial system.

"We usually do general tinkering of the system and leave the rest to the judges."
Concurring with Vijandran, another senior lawyer Loh Siew Cheang said that long waiting periods and delay reduce lawyers' productivity.

"We have 100 lawyers each waiting for an average of two hours to have their applications heard. This translates to 200 would-be working hours every day. Think of what a waste of national resources this is."

Cases also increase

Contrary to popular belief that lawyers enjoy postponements, he said lawyers are concerned with the delay in the administration of justice as it cast them in a negative light.

"We are accused by our clients of prolonging the matter to reap higher fees. This tarnishes our reputation."

Responding to the grouses, High Court Judge James Foong - a presenter at the forum - conceded that judges face problems in managing court hearings that seem to increase by the day.

"This all boils down to management. The chief justice is not a manager, I am not a manager, all the judges are not managers. And don't forget that crimes have increased substantially."

Attributing the problem to the lack of emphasis on management in local law degree programmes, he claimed to "have gone from law school to law school, suggesting to the deans to have management as part of their teaching" .

Former Bar Council chairperson Raja Aziz Addruse (photo left) asked Foong if the Malaysian court could emulate the practice in United Kingdom where trials are conducted continuously until completion.

"One step we can take immediately is to make sure that once a trial starts, it should finish. Right now a judge would fix for example three days for the trial of a case only to postpone for another two months. Then another three days is set. This takes a very long time to dispose the case," Aziz pointed out.

Foong also talked about the difficulties judges faced during staggered trials, where case files had to be reviewed again after a few months due to the intervals between hearings.

However, he was also careful to point out other constraints such as the increase in number of cases and appeals.