Sometime in the early 90s, when I was still an elected representative of the people, I received an appeal for assistance from one of my constituents. He had been detained by the National Bureau of Investigation in the Philippines, and could face the serious charge of "economic sabotage", the maximum sentence for which was life imprisonment.

I duly flew into Manila and sought the service of a lawyer, or an "attorney" as he was called in that country that is still heavily influenced by the American legal system. Soon, this attorney with a languid Spanish sounding name made me the offer. For Peso 50,000 (RM5000), the judge sitting on the case would ensure the release of the accused.

I did not take up the offer. That ill-fated Malaysian citizen was finally ferried back to Sabah through the usually unusual channel.

That is why I was hugely amused by the excellent article written by Roger Tan in the NST on April 6 this year entitled "The judiciary and a study in independence". In that article, the Chief Justice of the Philippines Artemin Panganiban was quoted as having said the following during an official speech:

"Indeed judges are subjected to all sorts of temptations and pressures some brazen, some subtle, some direct, some indirect."

"Litigants and their lawyers are sometimes devious. They study the judges' profile, personality, family history, and employment record in a spirited effort to find a weak point."

"Some resort to blackmail, some to political pressure, still others to friendship, kinship or even religious relationships."

That some judges are inevitably less than impartial and incorruptible is probably a universal phenomenon, especially in developing nations and dictatorships. Even in the First World, the credibility of the judicial process has not been achieved overnight. In many countries in North America and Europe, the judicial system has taken centuries of evolution to be what it is today.

Poison-pen letters

Even great men were not spared the scourge of corruption. Two years after he was appointed to the position of Lord Chancellor, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was prosecuted and found guilty of taking bribes from litigants. He did admit to the truth of the accusation, pleading only that he was taking presents from both sides, and that he never allowed presents to influence his court decisions.

So now, four centuries later, we have poison-pen letters circulating in Malaysia accusing judges of corruption. Some have reached the office of the Chief Justice, and he is reported to have passed the information to the ACA for further investigation. Unfortunately, the credibility of the ACA in investigating "Big-Fish" has not earned national confidence. The findings would most likely be inconclusive.

Recently, a former judge had broken his 10 years of silence, over a "poison-pen letter" that he wrote, alleging acts of corruption by 12 brother judges. He was forced to resign of course, and his allegations were never investigated. According to him, the Attorney-General at that time told him that he was to dismiss the allegations on pains of threats from a "big cannon". You and I must wonder who at that time had at his disposal such a "big cannon".

It is strange to talk about a distinguished judge writing "poison-pen letters". Fortunately, Foucault the post-modernist comes to the rescue. He says that the speech act is an exercise of will to power, especially in categorising classifying and labelling. As in Heidegger's "idle talk", words become true just by merely being said by others, especially those in authority. Words can really demean, maim or kill, more than knives and bullets perhaps.

As one pedantic writer to the NST pointed out, the letter written by the former judge is not a poison-pen letter, which is, by definition, a letter written out of malice. It was more an anonymous letter written by someone who had no other recourse towards excavating the truth for the good of his organisation and the country as a whole.

That an exalted personage like a judge needed to resort to anonymous letters testifies to the dark blanket of white terror enveloping even the judiciary at that time. It was obviously a time when misdeeds in high places were covered up, and those who tried to uncover those dastardly acts were persecuted as mischievous "whistle-blowers".

After all, the doctrine of the independence of judiciary within a system of parliamentary democracy founded on the dogma of separation of powers has always been one of our better colonial legacies.

Throughout the early years of our independence, our judges and lawyers had displayed a high standard of judicial excellence respected both at home and all over the British Commonwealth.

Roger Tan made special mention of the late Lord President Tun Mohamad Suffian Hashim. Equally legendary, are names like Rajah Sultan Azlan Shah (right) and Datuk Harun Hashim. And for my own experience, I still remember vividly the dissenting decision given by Datuk George Seah in his judgement on the Merdeka University Case. They exemplified the sort of integrity, scholarship, dignity and fairness which we associate with the wisdom of a King Solomon.

The turning point came in the 80s, especially in the later part of that decade.

The then PM was under serious siege from challenges to his leadership within Umno. He resorted to a series of very drastic manoeuvres to consolidate his position in government and in the process broke all traditions and shook many of the major institutions of state to the core.

The axe fell in 1988

The power and prestige of the palaces were curtailed. During Operation Lalang, prominent parliamentarians were detained under the ISA, together with religious workers and NGO activists. In one fell swoop, the increasingly radical press was silenced or brought out. It was too much to expect then, that the judiciary would be spared, since the independent judges had until then brought much embarrassment to his rule with their inconvenient decisions, like the one declaring Umno to be an illegal party.

The axe (or was it the big cannon?) came in 1988, when the then Lord President and two excellent Supreme Court judges were removed through special tribunals. The lesson could not have been lost on subsequent Lord Presidents and Chief Justices. From then on, the legal fraternity was buzzing with all sorts of rumours, the details of which I shall leave out for the sake of decorum.

That single event marked the decline of the Malaysian judiciary, at least in the eyes of the public. The trial of a former Deputy PM, with all the drama and the fanfare, further called to question the integrity of the entire judiciary, even though most of the judges and magistrates slogging away in the courts all over Malaysia were beyond reproach in the discharge of their duty.

Even the man-in-the-street knows how important it is to have wise, independent, learned and clean judges to sit in the court, to interpret the law, to arbitrate disputes, to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. We do not get this idea from the West. Each ethnic and religious tradition is full of folklore detailing the great deeds of great judges in the past. They are the final arbiter of social order and dispenser of justice. No civilisation can ever be great without great judges.

Last resort

In a modern democracy, whenever a citizen is wronged by administrative or legislative injustices, the court is also the last resort where he can seek protection from the executive arm of the state, and exact justice for himself and the Rule of Law. That is why the judges must enjoy protection from interference and corruption, in order that they make the best decisions according to the law, without fear or favour.

The years of subjugation of the judiciary under the dictatorship of the former prime minister has done the greatest disservice to our fine judicial tradition. It was bound to inflict deep wounds within the collective soul of the bar and the bench. I am sure many fine judges, magistrates and lawyers, as well as concerned citizens like me, would like to see those grievous wounds diagnosed, treated, and healed, for the democratic future of our beloved nation.

The Bar Council has already called for the setting up of an Independent Judicial Appointment Commission, to ensure that appointment of judges is done on a transparent basis for the best administration of justice. They have also called for the setting up of a Royal Commission of Enquiry to look into all allegations of corruption among judges.

Surely, such activist initiatives towards restoring the reputation of the judiciary, if accepted by the executive branch, will only boost the standing of the current prime minister as a considerate, reasonable and cool leader..

The probe must not be seen as a prelude to a vindictive witch-hunt, but a courageous public action to make things right.

As I write, the court and the judges are once again under national scrutiny. There are a series of high-profile cases that entail some archaeology of past events that had cast a veil over the nation's history at one time. Of course we cannot discuss the merit or demerit of those cases, but it does not mean that we cannot ponder on those cases with concern and love for our country in our hearts.

The most distinguished judges in the land are now sitting on a political land mine. As the trials continue, they may not sleep uneasily at night. The heavy weight of restoring the prestige of the Malaysian court as a sacred institution devoted to truth and justice bears down ponderously on their shoulders.

This moral burden ought to be a heavy weight for our judicial heavyweights.