I refer to the Malaysiakini report Perak MB - it's Zambry!
With a stroke of pen and with his lone voice echoing over the packed courtroom in Putrajaya, Chief Justice Ariffin Zakaria has literally driven the final nail into the judiciary’s coffin and in the same breath wiped out whatever little integrity and respect the judiciary still had.
Any pre-notion or hope that all Malaysians carried has simply been swept away in a matter of 30 minutes. What the court confirmed on that momentous day is not merely who is the rightful menteri besar of Perak but more ironically, the reaffirmation of the general belief among us that the court is nothing but a tool of the ruling BN government.
Some may argue that politics is all about perception and the judiciary should be free of such elements. The only task of the judiciary is to seek the truth regardless of public perception. They are wrong, dead wrong. After all, justice must not only be done but must seem to be done.
The judiciary is the bulwark against executive oppression. From a constitutional point of view and in strict adherence to the separation of powers doctrine, the judiciary stands as the last ground of defence - a sacred gatekeeper - against the assault of the executive or legislative branch dominated by politicians with self-interest.
The rulings of the court must be seen to be clean and respected. This honour and reputation takes years, sometimes even centuries, to be earned but it can be washed away in mere minutes and seconds.
For illustration, the USSupreme Court has earned that right through their years of consistent stands and exhibition of their role as defender of the constitution. Its decisions are well respected by both sides of the political divide.
When the US Supreme Court ordered the vote recount to stop in Florida in 2000 and thus hand over the presidency to George W Bush in a landmark decision, Al Gore didn’t protest. Not because he felt he might lose but because he respected and knew the Americans also respected their court’s decision.
When the integrity and independency of the judiciary is well affirmed, its decisions are never questioned. Conversely, when the judiciary’s integrity is being questioned, so too would the decisions that it makes.
In his haste to reaffirm the Court of Appeal decision, the chief justice has denounced the well- established and sound constitutional principle enunciated in Stephen Kalong Nikang case and sent it into the dark corridors of the law’s empire and at the same time added another case to our ever-growing museum of our infamous judicial decisions.
The end result today is not just another black eye for the judiciary but even more crucially the concept of democracy and liberty is under siege here.
If we cannot even depend on our judges to be fair and independent, how can we entrust our basic rights as enshrined in our constitution to their interpretation and safekeeping?
