Once again (with a marked measure of aplomb this time around!) the judiciary has shot itself in its own foot.

Justice RK Nathan's hijacking of a routine regular appeal to vent his personal spleen at Justice Gopal Sri Ram's recent reversal of his decision is symptomatic of what ails the institution — a complete failure to understand what that position (of judging) is all about.

If the newspaper reports are correct — and frankly what else is there to go on these days — Justice Nathan was in court adjudicating in a civil appeal arising out of a motor accident dispute.

You could call that a totally innocuous occasion calling for nothing more than listening to arguments, evaluating the appeal record and delivering what should have been an uncontroversial judgment.

Instead, Justice Nathan, obviously waiting for such an opportunity and a suitably large and captive audience (appeal days bring lawyers out in flocks) tacked onto his judgment five pages of personal observations totally unconnected to the matter he was deciding. If this was not judicial hijacking, then what is?

And the punishment for judicial hijacking should be the gallows of an impeachment.

So come on, CJ, don't just wait to read the reports of what was said. It has all been said, and reported, and no amount of white-washing the situation is going to alter the fact that your judiciary is in a shambles, that public confidence in your hallowed institution is at an all-time low, that the winds of change said to have been blowing have all but abated and that generally your judges are dragging your institution to the heightened levels of a joke.

I read with some measure of satisfaction Justice Gopal's judgment. The long overdue message conveyed, very clearly too, that judges, by virtue of their very office, should be slow to go on the offensive particularly in matters of contempt and more so when it concerned their own court and, hence, their judicial ego.

It was a simple message — don't be judge, jury and prosecutor in your own cause — albeit strongly put. Consider the facts.

Justice Nathan punished a lawyer for 'daring' to write a letter seeking to explain developments that had taken place in his court. The letter, for all intents and purposes, was properly couched with no inflammatory language or denigratory remarks. Now what was contemptuous in that?

We are told that the lawyer even apologized, several times at that too. But all to no avail. He was still held to be in contempt. You could well ask why. And the only answer you are likely to get would be a graphic image of an affronted judge venting his spleen at a cowering layer who dared to do his duty.

Familiar? It should be. Because that is what Justice S Augustine Paul did to Anwar Ibrahim's lawyer Zainur Zakaria when he so generously and liberally handed down a three-month imprisonment term, which was struck off.

And now this latest charade in Penang! Wasn't Justice Nathan's attempt to salvage his ego by an act of judicial piracy precisely proving Justice Gopal's point: that judicial egos should need no balm, require no massaging and certainly need no protecting through a liberal abuse of the powers that go with sitting a few feet above the rest of us?

The office of a judge is special, almost hallowed, but just short of 'godly'. The judge has to be tolerant, have no ego, and be aware of the need to be humble. He cannot be dismissive, never offensive, able to rise above the cut and thrust, and anguish and pain, of litigation.

He must, and should, appreciate that to every litigant an ongoing trial is his one and only shot at justice, to every young trial lawyer the agony and glory unfolding all around him is what humanity is all about.

Was Justice Nathan's pitiable application of the contempt laws coming home to roost? If judges cannot stand the heat in the kitchen, then they should never opt to cook. And if they are in the kitchen by mistake and the heat is unbearable, then they should have the grace and dignity to get out.

But to stay on the Bench and become tired and irritable and pompous and then, to top it all, to lose sight of the wood for the trees is not what 'judging' is all about.

The word out on the legal street is that there are about to be generous movements both within and into the higher echelons of the Malaysian judiciary. The names of the chosen few are a closely guarded secret but when released will hardly be surprising. Seasonal changes hardly foretell winds of change.

Perhaps the call for a Bar EGM is timely, what with these shenanigans going on. We could then perhaps, in one fell blow, talk of 'ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings'.

But I have a niggling fear. That what will then happen will be a replay of history, of a judicial decree emanating from Penang (after all the judge is now there) injuncting the Bar from trying to reprise its increasing impotent role in the scheme of things or even, perish the thought, questioning the high drama unfolding in the judiciary. Memories are short only when we allow them to be. And lambs can only be silenced when slaughtered.

So please, CJ can we have an execution — in the Salleh Abas style? He did no more, or less than your present lot.