The fate of former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim will rest on three judges Chief Justice Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Steve Shim and Federal Court judge Haidar Mohd Noor.

The Federal Court the country's highest court will give its decision tomorrow on the appeal by Anwar against his conviction on charges of tampering with police investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and the six-year jail sentence.

With the decision, Anwar will exhaust his final avenues of appeals in a court of law, though the possibility of obtaining a royal pardon remains open.

The outcome of the appeal is important as it will set the tone for Anwar's second appeal against his nine-year jail term for sodomy. No dates have been fixed to hear that appeal at the Court of Appeal.

Even if the Federal Court is to decide in favour of Anwar tomorrow, the former politician will not be a free man as he still have to serve his jail sentence for sodomy.

Restoring public faith

Dzaiddin, who is chairperson of the three-member Federal Court panel, took over the helm of the judiciary in December 2000.

He replaced the controversial Eusoff Chin who faced allegations of misconduct and was largely blamed for the rot in the judiciary.

Dzaiddin's appointment was well received, with de facto law minister Rais Yatim saying that the new chief justice was the individual most capable of heading the judiciary.

Indeed, restoring public confidence in the judiciary was Dzaiddin's top priority.

Soon after his elevation, Dzaiddin expressed concern on the ever increasing level of damages sought by plaintiffs in defamation suits.

"Defamation claims and exorbitant awards sought and obtained by litigants reached dizzying levels recently and this approach seems rather troubling ... some Commonwealth jurisdictions have moved towards capping such awards," he had said.

"I believe there is much to recommend the position for a more practical approach, whereby the awards are capped or a more structured benchmark be established."

Desired effects

Following this, the quantum of damages granted were slashed by the higher courts on appeal.

The new chief justice's calls for changes also had the desired affect on other judges who had become more open in the need for the judiciary to be independent. Changes were also apparent in some high profile cases.

For example in May last year Shah Alam High Court judge Mohd Hishamuddin Mohd Yunus called upon the parliament to re-evaluate the use of the Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial, and he subsequently released two reformasi activists held under the controversial law.

The only blight on Dzaiddin's move thus far must be the appointment of former attorney general Mohtar Abdullah as a Federal Court judge early last year.

Dzaiddin has thus far not involved in any high profile court cases though he has heard two potentially explosive cases this appeal by Anwar and later the appeals by five Keadilan and reformasi activists detained under the ISA.

On the ISA detainees, the Federal Court has yet to make its decision known.

However, Dzaiddin had ruled in favour of the government for arresting the five under the ISA in an earlier appeal.

Public interests rulings

Justice Steve Shim, however, is known to have made several public interest rulings.

More recently, in his decision in allowing lawyer Zainur Zakaria's appeal against his contempt of court conviction and the three months' jail sentence imposed by High Court judge Augustine Paul during Anwar's abuse of power case in 1998, Shim had taken Paul to task.

He said that Paul had failed to look into the merits of application filed by Zainur to disqualify two senior prosecutors from the hearing

Zainur, one of Anwar's lawyers, had earlier filed an application seeking the removal of the two prosecutors senior public prosecutor and present Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail and senior prosecutor Azahar Mohomed claiming that they had "pressured" Anwar's tennis partner S Nallakaruppan, who was detained for illegal possession of firearms, to fabricate evidence sexual misconduct against the former politician in exchange for lenient punishment.

Shim had also stated that there was a prima facie basis for Anwar to complain of fabrication of evidence against him.

Justice Haidar was also part of the panel that allowed Zainur's appeal.

Known relationship

Shim and Haidar also heard an application by journalist MGG Pillai for a review of the Federal Court's earlier decision which dismissed Pillai's appeal against a defamation suit filed by business tycoon Vincent Tan.

Pillai had applied that the earlier judgment, presided by Eusoff, was flawed due to the former chief justice's known relationship with Tan's lawyer VK Lingam. Pillai had said that the decision could have been tampered by an element of bias.

Though Haidar was part of the panel majority to agree that there should be a review of the case, Shim was opposed to it. Subsequently, the court did not come to its findings based on the element of possible bias but on other technical grounds.

Shim and Haidar were also in the Federal Court panel that ruled that ISA detainees need not be produced in court during habeas corpus applications.

Judging by the three judges' past decision, it is difficult to predict how they will vote on the Anwar's appeal. That we will have to wait for tomorrow and malaysiakini will be there to cover their decision live.