Now that former Lord President, Salleh Abas had given several valid reasons why a review of the 1988 judicial crisis should be carried out, hopefully the government will respond favourably to his request.
There has been several letters in the mainstream papers by prominent personalities who requested the government to review the case but this had been shot down by Nazri Aziz, the defacto law minister in the cabinet, who adamantly said that the inquiry would not be open. Hopefully, he will change his minds after this.
We need to exorcise the dark days of our judicial past and restore the honour of the judges who brave the storm to stop their independence from being assaulted by the then executive. Our judiciary, which was free from executive influence, was well-respected by other Commonwealth countries as most of the British-trained judges in the bygone era had carried out their task without fear and favour.
A picture paints a thousand word and the photos of our top judge going on a holiday with a lawyer friend makes one wonders if the chief judge of the country doesn't know how to choose his friends, what then about the other judges?
Much water has passed under the bridge after the crisis, and two of the judges had since passed away while one is critically ill. By having an independent inquiry to probe the matter, the mistakes of the past will be rectified and the good names of the senior judges who had the ignominy of facing a tribunal for their alleged misconduct will be cleared.
Really, this country needs a truth commission. God knows how many skeletons and misdeeds of the former regime that need to be look into in order for our country to move on. If we don't rectify our weakness, how are we going to make sure that future leaders learned from past mistakes to take our country to new heights?