The new chief justice, Mohd Dzaiddin Abdullah, promises an open and accountable judiciary, moves swiftly to restore its tattered image and credibility. In a stinging rebuke to his predecessor, Eusoff Chin, who retired two days ago under a cloud, he said the chief justice would deal only with policy and the chief judges the details. Eusoff ignored policy and dealt with only how the courts could be run, making sure judges he did not approve of - those who did not form his circle - remained in the shadows. I know of at least two judges who marked time for a few years, in frustration, before they retired.

Dzaiddin says the press can criticise the judiciary "within limits". He admits there has to be a "cleaning-up". No one talks about the past, but how he says he would go about it says it all: restoring the judiciary's image, putting the judicial house in order, improve the functioning of justice. Indeed, no judicial appointment has been as welcome as his. He was not the Prime Minister's choice, who would have preferred the outgoing Attorney-General, Mohtar Abdullah, a former High Court judge.

Although he denies it, he was clearly in the "Team B" of the judiciary, the group that Eusoff penalised. His no-nonsense approach in canceling the last minute judicial appointments within Tun Eusoff's purview - those of judicial commissioners and judicial postings. One name on that list is the lawyer who went on holiday with him, V K Lingam. He should begin to appoint judges who are competent in the law and respected for his philosophical view of the law. The constitution reduces them to a mechanical role, one lesser minds would rather.

Legal training, as Edmund Burke once said, sharpens the mind and narrows it. Lawyers are produced these days in tuition centres, and they go into practice with little understanding or civitas about the law. This is not an inhibition that is about to go away. Judges should be chosen from lawyers who look upon the law as a profession which they would defend to the death, as a journeyman who rises to be the master craftsman. Instead, one judge is therefore because he was master to a prominent judge close to the outgoing chief justice, another because he acted for a cabinet minister, a third because he is close to some one high in the cabinet. In each case, the judicial competence was irrelevant.

Dzaiddin has a heavy burden upon his shoulders, and little time. He is 63 and has less than two years in office. But that is more than enough to tell a disbelieving public that the old ways would be retired as firmly as the chief justice is. For a start, he should allow the Bar Council, when the case appears before his court, to discuss the infamous holiday in New Zealand Eusoff and lawyer V K Lingam had. That would be a good beginning for this decent man, known for his humanity and going out of his way to help. He could well be the man who takes the first step in the journey of a thousand miles.