Nazri slams Ngeh for criticising court ruling
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz has hit out at Perak DAP chairman Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham for questioning a Federal Court ruling pertaining to Perak…
He said Ngeh, as a lawyer, should respect the decision of the courts and not make statements claiming the judiciary had interfered in the legislative.
“As for me, there is no doubt that the decision of the court is correct.” ...
Why did he sidestep pointing out former Justice NH Chan’s critiques of the Federal Court rulings? I think he should be giving a statement on this instead of just taking on the politicians.
According to my perception of what the people would think of our judiciary over the last 27 years:
There are good and bad judges as well as intelligent and not so intelligent ones. There are those who made it through lower standards of examinations and promoted via favouritism. Some could even be senile prematurely. But then again, an intelligent and well qualified person does not necessarily become a good judge. He could be prejudiced or even corrupted. There was even an alleged written judgement done by a private lawyer’s clerk! I am sure some preferred not to use their brainpower too much. Over time, knowledge of case law precedents, common law, statutes and constitution becomes blurred.
To use an analogy, I am now on top of the list of solvers of Sudoku in a particular website which uses relatively simple puzzles where I need to make only three attempts to fill a given box with certainty. Yet I could not complete most of those in The Star because they were definitely of higher standards. Would I be proud of my so-called master status in that site? I would be naïve to think I am good at it, let alone being a master.
The Lingam’s video had created doubts about the integrity of certain judges, which have yet to be resolved.
Though NH Chan retired as a Court of Appeal Judge, he was senior to most, if not all of the present Federal Court judges because he was sidelined for being independent in his judgments. Most people would take his criticisms of their recent judgments as credible, as he has effectively challenge them to take whatever actions for doing so.
Generally, in my opinion, those lawyers, in this case an ex-judge, who dared to challenge the government decisions are better qualified because it takes a lot more effort and intellect to criticise than to go along with the flow. Being apolitical makes him more credible to the public than even an eminent lawyer politician.
Similarly, generally speaking, opposition lawyer politicians are likely to be better than BN lawyer politicians based on the statements made by them. While I cannot discount the possibility of BN men having to make politically necessary statements even if they did not like them personally, it is definitely easier going with the flow than to criticise. Of course, like everything else, there are exceptions to the rule.
I can still remember more than 30 years ago, when my relative took her bar examinations, I could not get over the fact that candidates could use textbooks to answer the questions. Well, it is a case of if you do not have it, no matter how many books are available, and all the time provided, you won’t be able to answer satisfactorily. It is like having a dictionary and yet unable to write a good essay. Or given logarithm tables and yet unable to solve mathematical questions.
The public may not know, but the peers in the profession would know who are the excellent ones and who are not. But as members of the public, we can still try to judge for ourselves, especially with the help of concerned legal experts willing to stick their necks out for the good of the nation. I do not think it is good to be blind loyalists.
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