COMMENT | When I was deputy registrar in the 1970s, former chief justice of Malaya SS Gill told me: “You know, Hamid, India abolished trial by jury in 1957. We adopted it in the same year.”

Now, we seem to be repeating it. A few years ago, our Federal Court adopted the basic structure doctrine created by the Indian Supreme Court. Last year, the Indian Supreme Court changed its mind about it.

What will our Federal Court do now? By the way, in Malaysia, trial by jury was abolished in 1995.

Let me tell the story from the beginning.