Retired judges, no longer bound by the vow of silence, should respond and defend themselves in the electronic media if they feel their judgments have been unfairly criticised by former Court of Appeal judge Datuk N.H. Chan, said Federal Court judge Datuk Gopal Sri Ram.
"The fact that they have not done so must mean only that the criticism is unanswerable or that their intellect has not been offended. Either is a damning condemnation of the worth of the judgments under review by my brother," he said when launching the second edition of Chan's book How to Judge the Judges here yesterday.
Saying criticism was a part of the environment in which a judge functioned, Sri Ram pointed out that every lawyer and judge was, in fact, a critic of the errors of others. It was only through criticism that one acquired knowledge, he said. Cautioning against over-sensitivity to criticism, Sri Ram said it could only lead to ignorance or, worse, intellectual arrogance.
"But where a judgment is tainted with intellectual dishonesty, there is nothing much you can do except to expose the fallacy of the grounds put forth to justify a conclusion already reached before hearing counsel. Fortunately, there are not many of them."
"The fact that they have not done so must mean only that the criticism is unanswerable or that their intellect has not been offended. Either is a damning condemnation of the worth of the judgments under review by my brother," he said when launching the second edition of Chan's book How to Judge the Judges here yesterday.
Saying criticism was a part of the environment in which a judge functioned, Sri Ram pointed out that every lawyer and judge was, in fact, a critic of the errors of others. It was only through criticism that one acquired knowledge, he said. Cautioning against over-sensitivity to criticism, Sri Ram said it could only lead to ignorance or, worse, intellectual arrogance.
"But where a judgment is tainted with intellectual dishonesty, there is nothing much you can do except to expose the fallacy of the grounds put forth to justify a conclusion already reached before hearing counsel. Fortunately, there are not many of them."
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SOURCE: NST
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Why did Sri Ram add the last few words? Was it that there are not so many of them or much more? Sri Ram should know.
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4 comments:
yup, not too many of them even if we all add in, the max is only 11 at the very top, aint it.
The judge said it's fortunate there are not many "judgment that is tainted with dishonesty" ( there's nothing intellectual about dishonesty). But any judgment that is dishonest in nature is a catastrophe to Malaysian judicial especially judgment that relates to the constitution. It's akin to the rape of the constitution by the very people who are appointed to uphold it in the first place. "Harapkan pagar, pagar makan padi" and worse, the rape is done by the highest ranking people, the judges who are supposedly the last bastion of justice and law. When this happen, democracy is dead in Malaysia and prostitution is replacing the judicial as the pillar of "democracy"(democracy is replaced with "guided democracy"). 1Malaysia is 1 guided democratic Malaysia.
How to answer if your conscience tells you that you have already done wrong and trespassed on the very ethics and principles of justice that you are supposed to uphold?
the solution? bring back the privy council.
1Malysia or not, perception is that UMNO will lay its hands on the judiciary and therefore you cant expect the ketuanan judges to uphold the constitution anymore.
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