Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times by Barry Wain (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📕

for my forgiveness because of his involvement in the move to dismiss me as the lord president in 1988," Salleh said.[66]

After he left politics, Dr. Mahathir said the king also had been upset by another letter from Salleh, sent earlier, in which Salleh complained about noise during repair work at the king's palace, near Salleh's house.[67] When the charges against Salleh were published, however, royal displeasure over renovations was not one of them. Rather, many stemmed from speeches and interviews Salleh had given, and some even related to his behaviour after suspension.

In essence, Salleh was accused of being biased against the government. The proceedings against him were considered by independent legal experts to be highly improper in several respects. For a start, Dr. Mahathir, as his accuser, got to name the six-member tribunal. Only one judge met the principle of being of superior rank to Salleh, despite the availability of suitable candidates, while the inclusion of the speaker of the House of Representatives was inappropriate under Malaysia's separation of powers doctrine. The tribunal refused Salleh's application for the hearings to be open, and declined to adjourn to give his British counsel time to appear for him.

The participation of Hamid Omar "made a mockery of the whole process".[68] As acting lord president, Hamid stood to be confirmed in that position if Salleh was convicted, and as chairman he would cast the deciding vote if the panel was deadlocked. Worse, Hamid was an interested party as one of the 20 judges who approved the letter written by Salleh to the king.

Although the public did not know, Hamid, too, was vulnerable to pressure, having lost a considerable amount of money investing in a company that subsequently performed poorly. His financial losses, as well as social indiscretions, were known to the government, having been circulated in a surat layang, the contents of which he confirmed, in a private interview, to be accurate.[69] Hamid told a Bar Council delegation that urged him not to accept a role in the tribunal he feared he would be dismissed if he refused. "If I am sacked, will you or the Bar Council compensate my losses of remuneration," he said.[70]

Convinced he could not get a fair hearing, Salleh withdrew and sought an order from the High Court to halt the tribunal for being allegedly unconstitutional and illegal. Failing to get a response and fearing the tribunal was within days of submitting its report to the king, Salleh's counsel sought a temporary ban from the Supreme Court. The most senior judge — considering that the lord president was suspended and that the acting lord president was involved in the hearing — took the initiative and convened a five-member panel that issued the stay order. Soon after, those five judges were also suspended, after a complaint by Hamid that they conspired to hold a special session of the court without his approval. A second tribunal was established to hear charges of gross misbehaviour against the five.

The first tribunal's report, described by an eminent Queen's Counsel in Britain as "the most despicable document in modern legal history", found Salleh guilty of misconduct and recommended his removal.[71] He was sacked as lord president with effect from 8 May 1988. On the same day, the appeal by the UMNO 11 was heard by a mixed panel of five Supreme and High Court judges, presided over by Hamid, and dismissed the following day. Dr. Mahathir had survived. As Salleh wrote later, "I have no doubt and few would now disagree — that it was the UMNO saga that led to my destruction as a judge."[72]

The second tribunal's report — the work of "young colonels [who] were appointed to sit in judgment against generals", since three of the five members were relatively junior judges of the High Court and the accused were all Supreme Court judges[73] — recommended in a split vote that two be dismissed and the three others reinstated. When Hamid subsequently was confirmed as Lord President of the Supreme Court of Malaysia, one constitutional scholar wrote, "This elevation of a man, who many believe had violated the fundamental rules of natural justice, underscored the irregularity of the whole episode."[74] The Malaysian Bar, representing all the country's lawyers, passed a resolution of no confidence in Hamid by a vote of 1,002 to 0. All the High Court judges who were involved in the affair were promoted to the Supreme Court in due course.

The assault on the judiciary, as it was ever after known, though motivated by political factors, opened the way for money to seep into the system. Some of the judges who played ball with the Mahathir administration rose rapidly and could not resist the temptation of bribes. They came to occupy some of the most senior positions in the judiciary, seemingly untouchable as long as they cooperated with their political masters. The integrity of at least three heads of the judiciary was "called into question".[75]

Indications surfaced in the mid-1990s that litigants in several civil and commercial cases had manoeuvred to have their cases heard before judges of their choice.[76] According to one judge, where lawyers once took books, law reports and legal authorities to court, they now carried cash so the judges could reach a decision "with complete disregard for facts and the law!".[77] The judge anonymously circulated a 33-page document listing 112 allegations of impropriety: 39 charges of corruption, 21 of abuse of power, and 52 of misconduct, immorality or other indiscretions.[78] The government forced the judge, Syed Ahmad Idid Syed Abdullah Aidid, to resign, but did not prosecute him, even though it declared his allegations baseless and said all the dozen judges questioned by investigators were clean.

What many regarded as the "final nail hammered into the coffin of judicial independence" was another constitutional amendment in 1994.[79] Apart from restructuring Malaysia's judicial hierarchy, it allowed a judge to be dismissed for breaching a proposed, government prescribed code of ethics. Although the restructuring, to create an appeal court at home following the