A cushy consultancy job in one of the country's largest law firm within a month of retirement has raised more than a few eyebrows about former top judge Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah.

The Bar Council yesterday discussed a possible conflict of interest between the former chief justice and his current employer Skrine & Co, where he is a consultant.

Its chairperson Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari said in a statement late last night that there are currently no legislation or code of conduct that regulates the professional or commercial activities of judges after retirement.

Influenced or compromised

"Previously very few judges would practise law after retirement. In recent years, however, there has been an increase in the number of retired judges desiring to join the Bar. The issue has thus become a pressing one to be addressed by the Bar".

He said that when a judge retires and soon after joins a law firm, an area of concern is the perception that an offer to do so might have been made to the judge before his retirement.

"This gives rise to the question whether the independence of the judge could have in any way been influenced or compromised by the making of such an offer."

Kuthubul stressed that what was of concern to the Bar was that not only must the independence of the judiciary be in fact not compromised, there must also not be any appearance of the possibility that such independence could have been compromised.

He said that in protection of that principle, the Bar Council felt that there should be a lapse of a suitable period of time (a "cooling off" period) after a judge's retirement before he may be permitted to practise law at the Bar.

New provision

"The Bar Council will be studying the detailed aspects of this issue, with the view of formulating and forwarding a proposal to the chief justice and the government in the near future to introduce a new provision to regulate the professional and commercial activities of retired judges," Kuthubul added.

The statement did not name any judge.

Skrine & Co is said to have received a favourable judgement from Mohamed Dzaiddin two days before he clocked out for good on March 15.

The 1994 Judges' Code of Ethics is also silent about such a situation.

Kuthubul told malaysiakini last night that there were also no facts to substantiate the allegations that Mohamed Dzaiddin had delivered a judgment in favour of Skrine two days prior to his retirement.

"As it stands now, all these are mere allegations. They are not backed by facts."

Not too long after Mohamed Dzaiddin's retirement, Kuala Lumpur-based Skrine & Co advertised the appointment in a daily English tabloid the appointment, prompting a scrutiny of the former chief justice's conduct.

Yesterday, The Star highlighted, based on a strongly-worded letter from a lawyer and criticism from senior lawyers, the impropriety of Mohamed Dzaiddin's acceptance of the consultancy position.

Conflict of interest

DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang said the appointment raises "grave conflict of interest issues affecting public confidence in the judiciary".

He said some countries had a developed code of ethical conduct which regulate enforceable conflict of interest and post-employment code for public officials, including judges.

Such a code, he said, prohibits officials top holding public posts from accepting employment in a manner that could suggest improper advantage of their previous position.

"A common provision is a time bar of at least two years to restrict a public official from taking up an employment that could give rise to conflicts of interest, whether real, potential or apparent," he said in a statement.

Lim said the latest controversy in the judiciary could have been avoided if the Judges' Code of Ethics had been better framed to provide for a such a post-tenure scenario.

"Instead, it is a most unsatisfactory code that had led to one judicial scandal after another, and embroiling one chief justice after another."

In early April, de facto law minister Dr Rais Yatim lauded the receptiveness shown by new chief justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim in a discussion on ethics following his appointment on March 17.

Calling for a total revamp of the Judges' Code of Ethics, Lim said a satisfactory mechanism to receive and deal with public complaints on violation of the code should also be included.

"The dispensation of justice and the principle of the independence of the judiciary do not just concern judges. Lawyers and the public must also be involved in the overhaul of the code for public officials."

He added that it was time to draft a specific code to address conflict of interest and post-employment issues for public officials in order to restore public confidence in the integrity of decision-makers.