Howl reviews the Judiciary in his own peculiar style, This wordwright never fails to amuse whilst he presents the facts for serious consideration. He allows you to smile whilst you read and your blood boils in sheer anger.
YOUR DISHONOUR!
By Howl Pillai
For hundreds of years in the West three vocations were regarded as the learned professions - Minister of the Church, teacher and lawyer. What about us here ?
We will let ‘lawyer jokes’ take care of our lawyers. As to our teachers they exist to prepare our students for national exams run by the Lembaga Peperiksaan which, and you would not believe this, is officially translated into the English as the Examinations Syndicate. It is some syndicate alright!
Now as to our Ministers, I do not know whether they are learned but I know they have nothing to do with the Church except when it concerns the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia. And you must also take note that doctors (that includes the spin variety as well) then or now are not regarded as belonging to a learned profession. And quite rightly so!
Surely you cannot be very learned when thanks to the medical profession of this country there is so much confusion as to where the anus ends and the rectum begins. Perhaps a third sodomy trial will finally shine some light on a place the light doesn’t shine on anymore! We are also unhappy with pathologists who appear to be lying in commissions and courts. We are again confused as to whether we can call them pathological liars ?
But let us return to the story of the learned professions. Though learned these professions were not on top of the pile. It was the judges who ruled the roost! They were not only learned but honourable as well. Honourable servants of the law of the land! It was they who saw to it that “Be you ever so high, the law is above you”. They were in essence the last bulwark of that most precious of things in a civilised society, “The Rule of Law”.
It is for this reason that judges are respectfully addressed as “Your honour” and referred to as “The Learned Judge”. The equivalent of the latter in Bahasa Malaysia is “Yang Ariff”. I wonder why we don’t address our judges in Bahasa Malaysia with “Yang Berhormat”. Is it because our politicians have usurped it for themselves ? Or is it because of our judges themselves ? The point here is that judges must be both learned and honourable. We simply cannot have a dumb as doorknob judge who is honourable nor have a learned judge who is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.
These days and around these parts there is this widely held perception that judges are not both honourable and learned. As concerned citizens we are duty bound to ask, “What is to be done ?”. A very learned and honourable friend has modestly suggested the following :
1) Suspend all our senior judges for a period of 5 years with full pay and benefits.
2) These forced 5 year suspensions will be officially called “Rancangan Belajar Sambil DiRawat” or in English, “Learning While Being Treated Programme”.
3) Suspended judges will be forced to attend as observers all sittings of the courts as if they had not been suspended. They must be seated in the public gallery.
4) Using the latest audio-video and teleconferencing ICT technology ala telemedicine, we will obtain the services of really honourable and learned judges from our fellow Commonwealth countries to ‘sit in’ as judges in our courts. Just picture a empty high chair where one of our judges used to warm his ample butt while hearing the lurid details of a supposedly sodomised butt. And on the table in front of the chair facing the court a giant LED monitor. And on it you will see perhaps a judge of the South African judiciary adjudicating in our courts ‘live’.
5) These telejustice judges will be well rewarded for services rendered to the Rakyat of Malaysia. But they better be warned that at the first whiff of corruption they will be shamed the world over. No long distance backroom wheeling and dealing; no betting on golf courses and deliberately being allowed to win; no holidaying in New Zealand or elsewhere with lawyers whose cases are presently being heard by you via telejustice; no allowing lawyers to put their hands around your shoulders while on a fishing expedition in calm or troubled waters; no waiting or hesitating for further instructions from you know who; no caught talking with drunk lawyers; no repeating “Correct! Correct! twice in a row and no reversing your own decisions.
As to our suspended judges, at the end of the five year period they will be retested on the law without exception or exemption. All of their exam papers will be marked by judges of the Chinese judiciary.(Remember , ours is an Examination Syndicate). Those who pass will be issued a Certificate in Judicial Practice or CJP. Those who fail will be shot. Chinese style. No appeals . No reversing decisions. No trial-within-a-trial.
Yes, shoot them! Why not ? It is not DNA that perpetuates humankind. It is ethics, integrity and honour that sustains us.
Your Dishonour, I rest my case!