The Federal Court has taken an unprecedented step by not writing a written judgment in a matter involving the ongoing dispute over the Perak menteri besar's post.

Lawyers for Pakatan Rakyat's Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin have been caught by surprise when they were informed that the apex court will not be providing written grounds for an application which was ruled in their favour.

nizar and zambry court 130509 The Federal Court had, in allowing Nizar's application, sent the matter back to the High Court to decide on the legitimacy of Barisan Nasional's Zambry Abd Kadir as the menteri besar.

In the early days of the case which was filed by Nizar against Zambry, High Court judge Lau Bee Lan had allowed the matter to be referred straight to the Federal Court to be decided on constitutional matters.

However Nizar's lawyer Sulaiman Abdullah had objected the matter to be heard before the Federal Court, and the highest court in the land agreed with him and sent back the case to the High Court.

This time around, the matter was heard before justice Abdul Aziz Abd Rahim who on Monday ruled that Nizar was the rightful menteri besar of the state.

While the matter has been disposed at the High Court level, lawyers for Nizar had written to the Federal Court to seek the written judgment for the decision to revert the case to the High Court.

The letters were written on March 25 to the Federal Court and a reply from the court on April 21 indicated that the Federal Court would not be providing any notes of proceedings and grounds of its March 23 judgment .

Why written judgments are important

Edmund Bon, one of the lawyers representing Nizar, said the courts regularly write its grounds of judgment to explain the legal reasoning for its decision, more so in cases of public importance such as the Perak cases.

"To date, the lawyers for either side do not know on what grounds and why the matters were decided in such way," he told Malaysiakini .

"Such judicial precedent plays an important role in the development and application of law in Malaysia.

"It would also assist lawyers and public alike to better appreciate the decisions," said Bon, who is also the Bar Council's chairperson on constitutional matters.

Bon said it would also prevent unwarranted criticism or scepticism regarding the decisions.

"The losing party may also wish to review the decisions and without the grounds of judgment, no review can be made," he said.

Furthermore, the judiciary's image had long been tarnished over unwritten judgments which had resulted in cases to be postponed, as the appeals could not be heard at the upper courts.

As a result, countless reminders have been put up by former chief justice Abdul Hamid Mohamad and present chief justice Zaki Azmi who had continuously reminded judges to write judgments.

Nizar's lawyers are now worried that the Federal Court will make similar decisions in not giving any written grounds of judgments on several other matters involving the Perak crisis.