By P. Gunasegaram
The unfolding judicial crisis as top judges retire, leaving a lacuna within the service and the very independence of the judiciary threatened, is prime minister Anwar Ibrahim’s doing.
He founded “reformasi” 27 years ago. His name pushed PKR and Pakatan Harapan to preeminence after the 2018 general elections. But events have shown that Anwar has not evolved enough to shed his Umno snakeskin and look to the future of the nation instead of narrow self-interest.
What he will end up with sadly is the loss of his own power and influence at the polls with the continued resurgence of PAS which will push him out of relevance in the political future of the country. He will be consigned to the sidelines of history – a person who had the opportunity but did nothing to further the cause of “reformasi”.
Soliciting judicial compliance
With power dependent on a tainted Umno and a political alliance whose future is increasingly reliant on a close, abiding relationship with that party to secure votes, however feeble that argument may be, Anwar is actively soliciting judicial compliance on his less than reverential path to hold on to power and achieve his goals.
That is something that every prime minister since independence has done, every single one of them previously a high-ranking Umno official, none of them allowing the judiciary to play its full role as a guardian and instrument of the constitution and fearless upholder of justice for all.
Instead Umno has consistently perverted the role of the judiciary to being subservient to the legislature and especially the executive, consistently using pliant judges to undermine their own and using them as instruments to serve pure, unadulterated political aims, many of them bad for the people and the nation.
The culmination of this was seen in 1988, when one of the worst of Umno PMs, Mahathir Mohamad, a strong believer that the judiciary must serve the executive and the legislature, wielded all the power he had and more to decimate the judiciary, taking action against the head of the judiciary and five senior judges.
With control over the judiciary and compliant head judges, he went on a rampage pushing everything through with no proper judicial oversight, including the trumped up charges of sodomy and abuse of power under which Anwar suffered, first under Mahathir and then under Najib Razak.
A reputation revived
One would have thought that having been a victim of oppression before, Anwar would be much more amenable to an independent judiciary and to fulfill campaign promises made from a long time ago to restore judicial independence.
The irony of it was that with push from Harapan partners post the 2018 elections which saw Najib being ousted as PM, even with Mahathir at the helm, judicial reform started in earnest, first with the appointment on July 11 that year of Richard Malanjum as chief justice.
On his retirement in April 2019, the current CJ Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat was appointed on May 2, 2019 and led the judiciary to a revival of the reputation of the judiciary severely tarnished in the aftermath of the 1988 crackdown..
She is due to retire today and strangely did not receive the customary 6-month extension given to senior judges on the expiry of their terms. Two other senior judges face a similar fate – Court of Appeal president Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and senior Federal Court judge Nallini Pathmanathan.
Malaysiakini reported Tengku Maimun will reach the mandatory age of retirement for judges, 66, tomorrow July 2, with Abang Iskandar hitting the milestone the very next day. Nallini’s 66th birthday will be on Aug 23.
All Anwar had to do was to extend their tenure and then he has six months to figure out who will take their places if he has not already. That gives time for a smooth transition. But he does not want to miss the opportunity to put his people in key judicial positions.
Yes, technically, the Judicial Appointments Committee recommends the appointments but as PM Anwar appoints five of the nine to the committee, he controls. Much like Trump in the US, he is using his position to put people he can influence into the ranks of the judiciary, caring little for an independent judiciary and its role.
A hollow pushback
Anwar’s push back against those who are supposedly lobbying for Tengku Maimun and others rings hollow – you should not jettison a legitimate extension of competent persons simply because others are lobbying for them. The decision must be made on merit.
The timing could not have been worse for Anwar, who is facing a contentious civil suit for sexual assault which he wanted immunity from and yet another discharge not amounting to acquittal for Najib due to the fault of the attorney general’s chambers which could not produce relevant documents.
Anwar’s accuser in the civil case is a former aide, Yusoff Rawther who had filed a civil case against Anwar. However, Anwar filed an application to stay the trial proceedings, seeking to refer constitutional questions to the Federal Court regarding the immunity of the Prime Minister’s office from civil suits.
The High Court initially dismissed Anwar’s bid to refer these questions. But on June 10, the Court of Appeal granted Anwar a temporary (ad interim) stay of the civil trial, pending his appeal over the constitutional questions. The hearing for the full stay application has been fixed for July 21.
Separately, Yusoff himself was acquitted on June 12, of drug trafficking and imitation firearm possession charges that were filed against him after a police raid on his car in September 2024.
During this trial, Yusoff, who was detained from his arrest until he was acquitted, claimed he was a victim of entrapment by people in power. Details of the civil suit published in the social media, have damaging information on Anwar if true.
Criticisms of the entire episode centre around what could amount to trumped up charges against Yusuff and his detention, and Anwar’s move to obtain immunity because of his position.
The right thing to have done is to give Yusuff his day in court and dispute his allegations legally. The system seems to have discriminated heavily against Yusuff made worse by the charges he was acquitted of later. That raises reasonable suspicions still unanswered.
Anwar will pay at the polls
Anwar’s recent railing in defence of the highly criticised latest discharge not amounting to acquittal (DNAA) of Najib again is misfounded. No one is asking him to interfere with the judiciary but when DNAAs are the result of the incompetence and oversight of the attorney general’s chambers, they are wrong.
Anwar, as PM, appoints the attorney general. If the AG is not doing his job properly, Anwar as PM must do something about it. Najib dismissed his AG for the wrong reasons, Anwar can do it for the right reasons.
As things remain, most of the nation thinks that the DNAAs are designed to help free Najib in a deal which Anwar may have made with Umno, whose top officials are the ones crying out the loudest for Najib’s freedom.
There are too many questions unanswered and the very lack of answers is a clear indication that Anwar has not shed his Umno mould. Like many politicians around the world, he is seeking a compliant judiciary to further his political goals.
That’s tragic considering the major strides the judiciary has made since the momentous 2018 elections to restore its independence, integrity and competence. History will blame Anwar. But he will pay for it earlier – at the next polls as public confidence in him wanes.
Malaysians are not easily fooled as the descent of Najib and other Umno wallahs show. But even in defeat, delusion still prevails until the very end – Anwar is hitched to the wrong caravan, Umno, the one steadily gaining speed on a downhill path to destruction.
P Gunasegaram says most of the world’s problems are caused by bad politicians who refuse to harness the power and potential of the right people for good.
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