Freshie Kota Bharu member of Parliament Zaid Ibrahim's maiden parliamentary speech came like a breath of fresh air.

His impassioned plea on May 24 for the judiciary to be handed back its independence made eminent sense and was refreshingly maverick coming as it did from a Barisan Nasional (BN) man.

However, a question mark hangs over whether that speech can catch fire and bring back lost glory.

Swimming against the habitual BN tide of compliance, he said when debating the motion of thanks on the Royal Address: "If we have faith in legal sovereignty, we should amend the Federal Constitution so that judicial powers could be restored."

He was referring to events in 1988 when the executive, upset with a series of decisions against it, ripped the soul out of the judiciary.

Few would disagree with him that the 1988 amendments to the Federal Constitution have severely sapped the power of the court to act as the instrument of justice, reducing it to merely deciding on matters of law.

The move was largely perceived as being motivated by the desire to prevent the courts from scrutinising certain government decisions.

"The whole exercise ensured that the executive was granted excessive powers," Zaid said, rightly pointing out that judicial review is the prerogative of the court and should not have been abolished.

"In reality, the public perceives judges and the judiciary as government staff and not a free constitutional institution."

It sums up the general feeling among thinking people. Zaid is also a senior lawyer who owns one of the biggest law firms in the country, and the Kelantan deputy Umno chief - credentials that cannot be easily waved away.

Predictable resistance

His point that one day we ourselves might cry out for justice and judicial protection - and therefore the need for an impartial court with full authority - is well illustrated by a long-running saga.

The main protagonist is languishing in Sungei Buloh's exclusive quarters provided by His Majesty's government.

Sacked former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's head must be filled with scorpions at the memory of the days when the constitution was amended and then Lord President Salleh Abbas was removed from office in lynch-mob fashion.

Regret must rise in Anwar on such occasions for not standing on principle at such a critical juncture in the nation's history. And now history's hand lies heavy on him and all his whingeing at the judiciary comes far too late. His fate is just one example of the ills that flowed from the events of that fateful year.

Predictably, there has been resistance to the backbencher's plea on behalf of the judiciary. Nazri Abdul Aziz, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of parliamentary affairs dismissed Zaid's suggestion, saying it was too idealistic to be implemented.

Coming from a man who trained for the legal profession, the remark should have come as a shock but then he was talking as a good BN soldier.

From the time of independence in 1957 until 1988, judicial independence was taken for granted - an immutable fact of national life.

Suddenly, and seemingly overnight, idealism became a pariah. In reality a pragmatic arrangement was in place to separate the powers of Parliament, judiciary and the executive with human nature in mind, so that the three entities could provide the necessary checks and balances.

Parliament throughout most of its history has been more or less monopolised by the Alliance and its successor, the BN.

The general public could resort to the courts if they felt aggrieved about some government action or other. In fact that institution was the envy of neighbouring countries and a shining star in the Commonwealth. Without a doubt that loss is a national shame and weighs heavily on the country.

The judiciary had taken on the aspect of being too idealistic for one reason only; it was frustrating those bent on achieving their legally dubious objectives without hindrance from any quarter.

And once the bridle was off, greed in all its manifestations became rampant and the government's presence in national life grew overpowering and suffocating.

Whose interest?

Now decades later there is much breast-beating over the depth of corruption in the country with idealism thrown away as piece of worthless litter.

Idealism is in fact the yeast of a healthy society; its absence is now showing in the continued erosion of social values.

Nazri was also quoted as saying, "In the administration of a government, the interests of the country and the people are far above any other interest," in his winding up speech on June 2.

At first blush these words seem innocuous enough. But peel off that layer and the meaning takes on a totally different hue.

'The interest of the people', for instance. It hardly ever is. At least not in the way it appears to mean.

The circle of people that Nazri referred to are those with political clout: the kind that can with one phone call conjure up millions of ringgit in loans without collateral.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis was a good example of how the events of the previous nine years took their toll and how the members of this circle had refined the art of 'I scratch your back you scratch mine'.

Mismanagement and crony capitalist wheeling and dealing resulted in such huge piles of bad loans that the big corporations went into a freefall when the crisis hit.

The government had to swing post haste to their rescue if the national economy was not to come crashing down. The impact of that rescue exercise is still being felt in the form of budget deficits.

The cruellest cut was the drastic reduction in the budgetary allocation of the Health Ministry where the most vulnerable in society are being penalised for the profligacy of the few.

The oft-repeated exhortation of the political leadership for the people to change their mindset should be turned on its head. There are still people who remember the days when the loud and proud slogan was 'Leadership by example'.

That stirring cry was stilled when politics became an investment. Umno, the core party of the BN coalition is alleged to be wracked by vote buying and influence peddling as confessed by its leaders. That stain has spread to various levels of society.

So politics is no longer about service to the people; it's been replaced by looking after the welfare of Number One. There is a frightening logic to such sentiment; the herd mentality of 'everybody is doing it, so what's wrong if I do it too?'

One of most dramatic examples of the sins of the father being visited on the children is case of the large number of jobless graduates.

If self-confidence and a sense of shame had come together with their scrolls, they would be out fending for themselves, not waiting for a helping hand from the government.

It is really a hard world they've entered; so full of challenges that they need not only book knowledge but also mental and emotional toughness, including the courage to fail and then dust that off and try again.

Here's hoping that Zaid represents a new generation of politicians who respect and revere the established pillars of democracy.