The major cause of the delay in disposing court cases is adjournment, Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim revealed in a public forum yesterday.

In January alone, a total of 17, 596 postponements had taken place in all courts in the country, he said.

In his keynote address at the forum "The Right To An Expeditious and Fair Trial" organised by Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), he said that from the total, 6,537 postponements were caused by lawyers, 6,499 by the prosecution and 4,560 by the court.

The number is an increase to the postponements that took place in June 2004 which recorded a total of 16,254 postponements where lawyers are also the biggest contributor for causing a total of 6,750 delays, followed by 4,313 by the prosecution and 5,191 by the court.

Ahmad Fairuz said that the alarming number of postponements were discovered during the court's exercise of disposing pre-2000 cases adding that the reasons are "myriad".

He said some of the postponements were caused by the current rules and procedures that leave the courts no choice other than to postpone.

Another aspect of adjournment he had highlighted are those involving accused on remand who cannot be released on bail.

"In a case involving an accused charged under section 39B (of the Dangerous Drugs Act), a Kuala Lumpur magistrate had to mention the case since May 13, 2002 until as late as April 5, 2005 just because no requisition under section 41A of the Act had been issued," he said.

No choice

"Another similar case in Kuantan showed that the accused had been in remand since Sept 5, 2002 and the requisition was only obtained on Oct 6, 2004. One wonders whether this type of delay would be an infringement to International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (an accused is entitled to be tried within reasonable time)".

He said that although some postponements undeniably contribute to the delay in the delivery system of the administration of justice, the court sometimes has no choice but to grant adjournment to avoid grave injustice.

"It is common to postpone cases to allow time for parties to put up expert report or to trace important witnesses crucial to their cases. We have to recognise the fact that postponements are part and parcel of the delivery system of the administration of justice and refusing postponements on reasonable grounds may cause injustice to the parties of the case," he said.

He also said that allocation of human resources is also one of the reasons in the delay of administration of justice.

"There is no dispute that there is a shortage of superior court judges and even more acute is the shortage of judicial officers. As at March 1, 2005 there were 55 vacancies of magistrates and senior assistant registrars nationwide."

"Question therefore arises if cases are postponed for the reason that magistrate have been transferred out and there is no replacement which prolonged the disposal of cases, is that an unreasonable delay?"

He also admitted that poor management skills of judges and judicial officers also contribute to the delay which is why they have been instructed to take charge in maintaining the court diaries.

Successes of the courts

The chief justice also said that the judiciary's 2003 resolution to dispose off pre-2000 cases is beginning to see success.

"As at January 2005, the High Courts, Sessions Courts and the Magistrate's Courts successfully disposed of 73%, 85.1% and 90.1% respectively of the pending pre-2000 cases. This success is attributed to the excellent working relationship between the bench, prosecutors and lawyers."

Ahmad Fairuz told a press conference later that he may propose the appointment of more Judicial Commissioners (JC) to help High Court judges clear its backlog.

"We are thinking of appointing more JCs for the sole purpose of reducing the backlog of cases. We will then see and evaluate their performances , if they have the right temperament we may confirm their positions as High Court judges," he said.

He also commended Suhakam for making such a constructive move in pooling all relevant parties to discuss methods to improve the judicial system.

"Despite clamours for improvement on the speed of our judicial system from several vocal groups, I think Suhakam is the first organisation that had come forwards ro organise a forum on the issue," he added.