Judges have no way of changing the judiciary themselves and the onus is on the government, a former lord president stated in Kuala Lumpur last night.

Speaking for the very first time on the scandalous VK Lingam tape, Salleh Abas said the government has a duty to re-interfere into the judiciary.

"If the government was prepared to interfere in 1988 judiciary crisis which brought it to the present state of affairs, the government has a duty to re-interfere in order to repair the damage," he said to rousing applause.

He was obviously rebutting de facto law minister Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz who argued that it was up to judges to initiate judicial reforms as otherwise it would be seen as interference by the government.

Salleh - who is synonymous with the 1988 judicial crisis - was addressing 1,000 people who packed the hall in a forum entitled 'Judiciary Crisis - How to Stop the Rot?' organised by think-tank Institute for Policy Research (IKD).

In 1988, then premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad had Salleh tried by a special tribunal on charges of misconduct, for questioning constitutional amendments that seriously eroded the powers of the judiciary.

Two of five Supreme Court judges - George Seah and the late Wan Sulaiman Pawanteh - who had ruled that the tribunal was convened unconstitutionally were sacked along with Salleh, after being found guilty of misconduct by a tribunal of six judges, including one each from Singapore and Sri Lanka.

Some have described the dismissal of the top judges from the Supreme Court - then the country's highest court, now renamed Federal Court - as Malaysia's darkest hours in its judicial history.

Appearing in better health since his last engagement with the press at Hospital Kuala Lumpur last year, Salleh however said Seah's ( right) health is deteriorating.

"He is alive but he is having a health problem that makes him almost at a vegetative state. I met him last year and this is a very sad thing to say, he cried. I cry too. I cry a lot," he said in an emotion-choked voice.

Salleh also bitterly noted that, by definition, the country has no judiciary.

"If by definition a judiciary means an independent, incorruptible and neutral judiciary then I can say we don't have one, no," he said.

According to him, at least three amendments to the laws in recent years can be deemed unconstitutional. They are the decision by the minister to ban a newspaper, the decision by the police to ban a demonstraton, and decisions made by political parties - all of which cannot be challenged in court.

The Kuala Terrenganu-based Salleh proceeded to lay down several steps that needs to be taken in order to restore the judiciary back to its former glory.

These include:

  • Setting up a judicial commission on appointments and promotions of judges

  • Restore the vesting of judicial authority clause into the constitution to give power back to the courts

  • Tenure of office of judges should be fixed so that they do not feel afraid of making decisions eg judicial commissioners given a two year contracts are incapable of performing independently because they are subject to promotion or dismissal when the contract ends

  • Revise methods in removing judges should the judge be incapable of performing his or her legal duties or for health reasons

  • Protocol of judges must be looked into. Giving out of awards and honours to judges should be automatic when they hold certain positions

    • Another speaker, former Court of Appeal judge Shaik Daud Ismail appealed to the public to act in restoring the judicial crisis.

    He also took potshots at the past and present government after relating several encounters with them.

    "I had met with the (then) prime minister (Dr Mahathir Mohamad) to speak about the deterioration in the court. We spoke for about an hour and nothing came out of that.

    "We also have a law minister (Nazri Abdul Aziz) saying the government cannot interfere with the judiciary by setting up a judicial commission. This minister, of course, talks a lot but does nothing," he said to a tickled audience.

    Other speakers include PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim and Malaysian Bar vice-president K Ragunath.

    Watch 36-min video - Salleh Abas on how to stop judicial rot