In the recesses of the distant future, long after the hubris of the 2020 vision has settled, long after we are all dust, a group of students will gather in some hall of exalted learning and sit to understand the Malaysian psyche of the early 21st century.

They will troll through the archives of the Malaysian media, through the electronic libraries that will then be endemic, in search of events and happenings that will be help illustrate the malaise that held Malaysians entrapped.

The students will chance upon reports that will illustrate one aspect or another of a nation's slow and painful climb to maturity.

They will note the reports, smile knowingly at the clever, but usually nave sleight of hand moves of the protagonists, the undisguised attempts at playing the increasingly popular national board game of 'pulling-the-wool-over-the-populace's' eyes'.

They will shake their heads at the resigned raised-hands abject surrender of the people and then put the reports aside for reference at some future point.

The students will continue sifting through countless further examples, looking for that one gem, that one instance that illustrated beyond all measure the immutability of Malaysian mores.

Judicial fiasco

The immutable Malaysian mores?

Why, that is our unerring ability, no matter how grave the event, no more how destructive it is to the norms and standards and underpinnings of civilised conduct and the nation's well-being, to resolve it all by declaring the event a 'hands-off' occasion, then suitably camouflaging it as private personal domestic squabble, mouthing suitable platitudes and generally allowing a passage of a couple of days, at the most, for amnesia to settle in.

And then the students will chance upon the judicial fiasco of 2002 AD. All searches will stop. It is, and will be, a classic example of what became of us.

There is a hallowed institution, one vital to the existence of the nation: the judiciary.

There is a snafu replete with allegations and judicial lapses: a judge stepping way over the lines of judicial bounds and decency, an act of judicial misconduct without precedent, one euphemistically, almost delicately, described by the CJ as a "lapse in judicial conduct".

And then the inevitable baying for blood, some prompt, some delayed, some strident, others stuttering: an execution to redeem honour, the institution's honour.

Then the Ministerial wading-in, sabers flashing: the warnings, the exhortations, and the threats, the asking for time-to-investigate what was already in the public domain.

And the cry, always the cry, let us take care of our own, we will take care of our own, he will take care of our own.

Information not available

The students will read of the Bar, the 'Don Quixote' of Malaysian NGOs, being told to stay out of matters that were no concern of theirs.

The students will note the CJ's exhortation to get off his prerogative toes and a revealing candid admission that 'judgements [of his lot] no longer command uncritical deference' a sure sign of the demise of the hitherto expunged State of Denmark?

Clean, fresh, inquisitive minds will rush to consult the long-repealed Legal Profession Act to determine the Bar's role in the scheme of things.

And they will be pleasantly rewarded to read how the architects of that dead legislation saw it fit, in a generous surge of good sense, to put in place checks and balances in the grand scheme of things.

They will read of undisclosed deals and meetings and will immediately request under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act (a wonderfully liberating piece of legislation enacted in the year 2022 AD] for details and records of the deals and meetings.

The language used, the admissions made, the conduct of all parties, the very happenings of these putative meetings would be necessary to an understanding of what transpired.

The clipped response on their screens 'No records are available of meetings before 1.1.2022' will disappoint them.

An amnesiac society

Did Malaysians really have such a lackadaisical attitude that transparency, in all walks of State activity, did not concern them? How, they will ask, did we become so deft at giving an impression of great speed while standing still?

Then they will read of, perhaps even see, the dust settling and will note a gentle, almost imperceptible, shift in things. Life, which took a short pause to look at things in the beloved Malaysian penchant for gawking at accidents, will be up to speed.

The Minister now busies himself with other events, more immediate, more colourful.

The Bar not yet assuaged but hardly likely to be, trying for a change of steed, opting for a foreign one thinking that if they came faster at the windmill they were more likely to succeed, a quixotic response if ever there was one.

The students will laugh for they with the passage of time are wiser, having found that foreign horses ran no faster, were no stronger than the local domesticated breed.

The altercating judges? Victims, innocent or otherwise, on a chessboard of moves beyond their control.

The people? Suitably dulled, complacent, amnesiac. A no-skin-of-my-nose stance! Until the next reprise of the Malaysian mores lament or until the FoI Act 2022, hopefully?

Manjeet Singh Dhillon is a senior lawyer and former Bar Council chairperson.