The public will have to wait until next Tuesday to hear what Chief Justice Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah has to say on the open confrontation between two judges Court of Appeal judge Gopal Sri Ram and Penang High Court judge RK Nathan which shook the judiciary in recent days.

According to the chief justice's special officer Sabirin Jaafar, Dzaiddin will be ready to make a statement on the matter on Aug 6.

"The CJ will not make any comment on the matter yet as he has yet to study the judges' respective written judgments and notes of proceeding in which they had made comments about each other," he said.

Sabirin also said that the CJ had only received Nathan's judgment this morning and was still waiting for the notes of proceeding by Sri Ram who was on medical leave today.

Yesterday in part of a written judgment, Nathan accused Gopal of making personal attacks against High Court judges, and had targetted him (Nathan) for personal vilification in open court.

While he agreed that Gopal, as an appellate judge, had every right to criticise his judgments, Nathan said he would not accept Sri Ram's personal attacks against him made last week.

"Against the latest judgment of mine in which he sat to hear the appeal, he accused me of being vindictive and (passing) judgment to satisfy my ego," said Nathan in a written judgment which was read in open court yesterday.

He was referring in particular to Gopal's comments in a Court of Appeal hearing on July 25 when, while setting aside Nathan's conviction of a lawyer for contempt, Gopal had said that judges should not launch contempt proceedings vindictively and "purely for personal ego".

It is said that Gopal made the remark "off the cuff" when he and two other Court of Appeal judges Abdul Kadir Sulaiman and Alauddin Mohd Sheriff, had set aside a RM10,000 fine imposed on lawyer Lee Chan Leong for allegedly committing contempt before Nathan in April 1999.

Image should be pristine

Meanwhile, DAP national deputy chairperson Karpal Singh said the public confidence in the judiciary will be dented if rows between judges break open in the public domain.

In a press statement today, Karpal who is also a senior lawyer called upon Dzaiddin to take action immediately before the row between Gopal and Nathan worsens.

"The judiciary cannot afford any infighting. Its image in the eyes of the public should remain pristine," he said.

He added that it was most unfortunate that the differences between Gopal and Nathan have become public scrutiny when the issue could have been resolved by the Council of Judges established in 1878.

He added that the nature of the judges' status and function demands that any disagreement between them in relation to their duties or even in private does not become "talk of coffee shops".