Former law minister Zaid Ibrahim, who is being investigated by the police, is unfazed by the possibility of being hauled to court for criticising judges.

According to him, those in Putrajaya would be mistaken to think that any trial arising from this would be about him.

On the contrary, he said, the trial would be about them.

"I will defend my use of 'heartless judges' vigorously. I will explain why those judges have failed their oath of office, not just in Indira's case but in many others.

"Justice has been denied to Malaysians for so long because the judges are heartless," Zaid said in a blog post.

Zaid courted trouble for expressing anger over the Court of Appeal majority judgment in the protracted conversion tussle involving the children of K Patmanathan@Mohd Ridzwan Abdullah and his former wife M Indira Gandhi.

The former law minister noted that Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria had chastised him for not reading the Court of Appeal's judgment in the Indira case before calling the judges names.

A few days later, Zaid added, Arifin was supported by retired Federal Court judge Gopal Sri Ram.

"I would first like to ask both of them to read my blog post properly. My blog is easier to understand than some of the judgments from the Federal Court these days.

"I write for the common people. I speak their language. I was never a good or erudite lawyer like Arifin or Sri Ram," he said.

Zaid pointed out he was saddened by the Court of Appeal's decision in Indira's case, and reading the judgment would not help him feel better because the end result "nauseated" him.

Cavalier attitude to fundamental liberties

"As with all previous judgements that disappointed me, the judges defend their decision by saying they were powerless because of something or other.

"It could be because of a previous decision, or because of Article 121(A), or because the matter rests with the syariah court. We have heard it all before. That's the source of my exasperation.

"I did not say the majority judges were heartless or the only ones at fault. I was expressing my frustration, not just at the Court of Appeal judges but at all the judges in the Federal Court in the last 10 years for their cavalier attitude towards fundamental liberties and for not asserting the core constitutional principles of our legal system.

"My question was, what kind of system do we have? I said the whole country has failed or has lost its soul, and as a result we have produced heartless judges. If a mother cannot be with her daughter for nine years, then the system stinks," he added.

Zaid also said that he did not care if the Court of Appeal was bound by a 2014 Federal Court decision in the Haji Raimi Abdullah's case.

He asked why didn't the Court of Appeal follow another Federal Court decision in 2007 in the case of Latifah Mat Zin, if that would have enabled the judges to give justice to Indira?

"Over the years I have seen that there has been no attempt to assert the primacy of federal law over state laws; the primacy of civil courts over the syariah court.

"As in the Indira case, these judges always find, in cases where there is a conflict between syariah and constitutional principle, the easy way out and suggest that non-Muslim parties seek remedy in the syariah court. That's what incensed me," he added.

Sri Ram, Zaid said, argued that the Federal Court's decision in 2014 in Haji Raimi Abdullah's case was the cause of the problem.

"I am sure it is, but I don't care what the source of the problem is.

"It's the heartless judges in Raimi's case that started it all and which brought us to the latest judgment in Indira's case, and which led me to describe all of them as heartless. That's my opinion based on what happened.

"So the Court of Appeal was bound by the decision in the Haji Raimi case. Was the chief justice involved in that decision, that others had to follow it?

"Is Sri Ram saying the chief justice is the source of the problem? If the judgment was handed down in 2014, then the present chief justice must have presided over the case.

"If he thinks the decision in the Haji Raimi case was correct, then I am sorry for Indira and her team," Zaid added.