Mahathir yang 'melembukan' badan kehakiman,kata bekas Ketua Hakim Negara...

Mohd Dzaiddin said the judiciary is not a tool to be used by the government for any kind of political expediency. — Picture by Jack Ooi

Ketua Hakim, Tun Mohd Dzaidin Abdulah berkata, mahkamah-mahkamah Malaysia hari ini telah akur kepada kehendak ahli-ahli politik dalam cabang eksekutif kerajaan dan ia berpunca daripada Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Hakim yang bersara itu menegaskan, pindaan terhadap Perkara 121 Perlembagaan Persekutuan semasa pentadbiran Dr Mahathir pada tahun 1980-an telah melemahkan sayap badan kehakiman.

“Akibat pindaan, kuasa kehakiman mahkamah-mahkamah telah dikurangkan dan mereka hanya mempunyai kuasa apabila diberikan Parlimen,” kata Mohd Dzaidin, dan menambah bahawa “Parlimen lebih hebat daripada badan kehakiman.”

Beliau menjelaskan situasi itu amat buruk kerana “Parlimen cuba mengarahkan badan kehakiman kerana ia adalah satu-satunya badan yang mempunyai kuasa kehakiman.”

Tegasnya, “pindaan itu pada pandangan saya dalam cara yang landasan sebenar struktur asas perlembagaan persekutuan dari konsep kebebasan badan kehakiman kepada pergantungan badan kehakiman eksekutif untuk kuasa kehakimannya.”

Badan kehakiman Malaysia bukan satu alat untuk digunapakai kerajaan untuk apa-apa jenis kepentingan politik, jelas Mohd Dzaiddin.

“Badan kehakiman sepatutnya bebas sepenuhnya kerana kedua-dua badan eksekutif dan badan perundangan,” hakim yang bersara ini berkata semasa ucapan dasarnya meraikan ulang tahun Tunku Abdul Rahman dan Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) di Tunku Abdul Rahman Memorial hari ini.

Pada tahun 1988, President Tun Mohamed Salleh Abas telah disingkirkan oleh Dr Mahathir perdana menteri ketika itu.

Mohd Dzaiddin berkata kejadian itu adalah disebabkan perbezaan dalam pendapat antara Dr Mahathir dan Salleh atas peranan-peranan dua cabang kerajaan berkenaan.

Presiden Majlis Peguam Lim Chee Wee juga berkata insiden tahun 1988 itu tidak seharusnya diulang.

“Saya rasakan kita tidak harus kembali ke hari-hari ‘88, kami tidak akan membenarkan seorang perdana menteri memecat hakim-hakim hanya kerana beliau membuat satu pengumuman kehakiman yang mana tidak menguntungkan bagi kerajaan hari ini, bahawa mesti tidak harus berulang lagi,” katanya.

Lim turut berada sebagai panel dalam perbincangan berjudul “Empowering Liberal Democratic Insitutions” bersama dengan Ahli Parlimen Kota Belud Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan, Ahli parlimen Lembah Pantai Nurul Izzah Anwar , dan Principle Research Fellow di Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Anis Yusal Yusoff.

Beliau menambah bahawa untuk kes-kes komersial, sistem kehakiman Malaysia cukup dipercayai bagi menangani kes-kes dari rantau itu.

“Tetapi ujian terakhir sudah pasti apabila ia datang kepada kes-kes sensitif dari segi politik atau kes-kes keagamaan dan bagaimana perjanjian Mahkamah Rayuan kita dengannya.

“Tentang hal itu, saya tetap memberi pandangan negatif kerana setakat ini kes-kes keagamaan, kes-kes penukaran agama terdapat satu ketakutan oleh Mahkamah Rayuan kita dalam membuat satu keputusan. Mereka kerap menangguhkan kes-kes kontroversi seperti krisis di Perak,” katanya.

Pada hari Rabu, seorang panel hakim tiga lelaki dalam Mahkamah Rayuan memerintah yang hak-hak dan kebebasan bercakap memuliakan dalam Perlembagaan Persekutuan tidak mutlak.

Hasilnya, kenyataan veteran DAP Karpal Singh pada satu sidang akhbar pada 2009, bahawa Sultan Perak boleh disaman, telah melintasi baris-baris sah dan bersifat hasutan, kata hakim.

“Untuk menjadi adil, kami mempunyai hakim-hakim sangat berani yang telah menhalang kerajaan untuk melakukan tindakan salah. Jadi untuk adil terdapat yang dalam perkataan Tun Dzaiddin ‘ada hikmah di luar sana’,” kata Lim.
 

 Judiciary now cowed due to Dr M, says ex-CJ

The courts have become subservient to politicians in the executive arm of government today because of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former Chief Justice Tun Mohd Dzaiddin Abdullah said today.

 
The retired judge highlighted the amendment to Article 121 of the Federal Constitution, made during Dr Mahathir’s administration in the 1980s, which effectively clipped the judiciary’s wings for over two decades.

“As a result of the amendment, the judicial powers of the courts were removed and they have only such judicial powers as Parliament gives,” Mohd Dzaiddin said, adding that it meant “Parliament is more superior than what the judiciary was.”

The man, who once headed the country’s courts, said the amendment was repugnant “because Parliament attempted to dictate to the judiciary that it only has judicial powers which Parliament itself says the judiciary has.”

He stressed: “This alters in my view in a very fundamental manner the basic structure of the Federal Constitution, from the concept of the independence of the judiciary to dependence of the judiciary on the executive for its judicial powers.”

Malaysia’s judiciary is not a tool to be used by the government for any kind of political expediency, Mohd Dzaiddin said.

“The judiciary should be completely independent both of the executive and the legislature,” the retired judge said in his keynote speech celebrating Tunku Abdul Rahman’s birthday and the Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs’ (IDEAS) second anniversary at the Tunku Abdul Rahman Memorial today.

In 1988, then Lord President Tun Mohamed Salleh Abas was sacked by then-Prime Minister Dr Mahathir.

Mohd Dzaiddin said the incident was due to clashes in opinions between Dr Mahathir and Salleh over the roles of the two arms of government.

Bar Council president Lim Chee Wee also said the incident in 1988 should never be repeated.

“I think there is a recognition now by everybody, we must never go back to the days of ‘88, we must never allow a prime minister to sack judges just because he made a judicial pronouncement which was unfavourable to the government of the day, that must never ever happen again,” he said.

Lim said for commercial cases, Malaysia’s judiciary system was credible enough to handle cases from the region.

“But the ultimate test is of course when it comes to politically sensitive cases or religious cases and how our appellate courts deal with it.

“On that score, I still give them a minus because so far as religious cases go, the conversion cases, there is a fear by our appellate courts in having to make a decision. They keep postponing, the controversial cases just being postponed, then there is of course the Perak crisis,” he said.

On Wednesday, a three-man panel of judges in the Court of Appeal ruled that the rights and freedom of speech enshrined in the Federal Constitution are not absolute.

As a result, veteran DAP MP Karpal Singh’s statement at a press conference in 2009, that the Sultan of Perak could be sued, had crossed legal lines and amounted to sedition, the judges said.

“To be fair, we have very courageous judges who have awarded substantial damages against the government for wrongful detention. So to be fair there are those, in the words of Tun Dzaiddin, ‘silver lining out there’,” Lim said.

source:malaysiakini

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