In the shocking case of the Penang High Court judge RK Nathan attacking his superior, Court of Appeal judge Gopal Sri Ram, public opinion is largely against the former because Justice Nathan has obviously abused his power as a judge to launch a personal attack against his superior in a written judgement of an unrelated matter.

However, while Justice Nathan is certainly wrong in the method chosen to express his anger and grievances, the nature and cause of his frustration against Justice Gopal must also be investigated and become a public concern. We must be fair to both warring parties.

What drove a learned judge like Nathan to resort to an extreme mode of expression? There must be reasons behind the outburst. If the root causes of the outburst are not ascertained and eliminated, no one is certain that another such outburst by another judge would not occur in the future, making the Malaysian judiciary the laughing stock of the world.

Maybe it is time for the United Nations to step in to set up a multinational, non-partisan and independent commission to clean up the judicial mess in Malaysia which began when the executive destroyed the independence and integrity of the judiciary in 1988.

Time and again, the Umno-dominated government has been proven not capable of running the country with a normal and civilised social order. It is time for humanitarian intervention by the United Nations to restore the social, economic and political normalcy of Malaysia.