I refer to the malaysiakini report Abu Talib: Regrets, I've none . So after a period of more than a decade, the former attorney-general has finally come out in the open that his conscience is clear even though he played more than a pivotal role in the sacking of three eminent judges during the judicial crisis of 1988.

I suppose he is familiar with the lyrics of the song 'My Way' by Frank Sinatra which go: 'Regrets I have a few, but then again too few to mention...'. To think that he justifies his actions then because the court had agreed with his decision is to pull wool over the public's eyes.

This was so because the courts were lead by compliant judges after Salleh Abbas' removal and they knew what would happen if they went against the executive. The judicial decline has gone from bad to worse with powerful politicians and rich litigants always winning their cases. As Shakespeare says it poignantly, 'The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept'.

The former AG was doing the bidding of the former premier then, Dr Mahathir Mohamad who wanted the former Lord President Salleh Abbas removed from office as the latter had wanted a full coram of nine Supreme Court Judges to hear a case which Umno had an interest in winning.

A free and independent judiciary is something the nation and its people should be proud of. Only in Third World countries where despots and tyrants rules is the judiciary subservient to the executive. Brave and independent judges there have been known to be killed due to their decisions which were against the executive. The judiciary is the last bastion for the common people to seek legal redress against the powerful and it is also to check the excesses of the parliament.

To think that in Pakistan, where the army rules, its president failed to remove their chief judge. It speaks volumes of the Pakistan people who are willing to shed blood in order for the independence of their judiciary to be maintained. In our case, three brave judges had been removed on trumped-up charges in 1988 without so much as a whimper from the public.

Abu Talib - in one way or another - was the chief prosecuting officer in the removal of the three senior judges in 1988. He cannot wash his hands now of the mess the judiciary is facing. Let historians with no axe to grind decide on what role all the main actors played in removing the three brave judges and the ill effects it has caused the nation now.