The following piece is the most concise synopsis of the events
in 1988 in Kuala Lumpur that led to the dismissal of the
then Lord President of the Malaysian Judiciary, Tun Mohd
Salleh Abbas - and the mention of the constituting members of the
Tribunal that dismissed Tun M. Salleh Abbas.
The following synopsis was written for a book written by Tun
Salleh.
May Day For Justice
The UMNO Eleven case was quickly
dismissed. The removal of Tun Salleh also saw the resignation of
Deputy PM Datuk Musa Hitam who, according to popular wisdom, could
no longer stomach Mahathir's ways.
The Background Behind Tun
Salleh's Book
The Removal of Tun Salleh
Abas
Mahathir was continually upset
with the Judiciary because the verdicts in a number of cases went
against the Government. According to then Deputy PM, Datuk Musa
Hitam, one of his favourite slogans was "Hang the Lawyers! Hang the
Judges!" From 1987, he intensified his verbal attacks against the
Judiciary in the news media, making damaging statements which
clearly demonstrated that he did not understand the role of the
Judiciary as being independent from the Executive and Legislative
arms of Government. That the Judiciary exists as a
check-and-balance against the excesses of the Executive appeared to
have been a concept he never fully grasped. Instead, he accused
judges of the sort of political interference that would result in
confusion and loss of public confidence in the Government. Hence,
to curtail the powers of the Judiciary and subsume it beneath the
Executive became one of his cherished dreams.
In April 1987, after an UMNO
leadership contest in which Mahathir very nearly lost to Finance
Minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, there were allegations that
several delegates who had voted were drawn from branches not
properly registered under the Societies Act 1966. An appeal was
filed by eleven UMNO delegates to have the elections declared null
and void. This was a very serious matter for Mahathir because if
the appeal succeeded, fresh elections would have to be held and he
might lose. The matter finally came before Justice Harun Hashim of
KL High Court who ruled that under the existing law, he had no
choice but to declare not just the elections invalid, but the whole
of UMNO an unlawful society as well. The country and, more
particularly, UMNO, went into a state of shock.
In most modern democracies, a
political catastrophe of this magnitude would have result in the
immediate resignation of the party's President and Prime Minister.
But Mahathir did not resign. He informed the country that the
Government would continue running the country. Opposition Leader
Lim Kit Siang and Tunku Abdul Rahman called for a vote in
Parliament to establish Mahathir's legitimacy but those calls were
ignored. Mahathir then set in motion the machinery to form a new
surrogate party called UMNO Baru. His opponents, however, wanted
the old party revived. The eleven UMNO delegates then launched an
appeal in the Supreme Court to have the 1987 elections alone
declared illegal and the party not an unlawful society.
Mahathir fully understood the
danger to him of this pending appeal. He had to act quickly. In
October 1987, he launched the notorious Operation Lalang in which
at least 106 people were arrested and detained without trial under
the ISA, including three very articulate critics, the Opposition
Leader Lim Kit Siang, political scientist Dr. Chandra Muzaffar and
leading lawyer Karpal Singh. The official reason for the arrests
was that a highly dangerous security situation had arisen but this
has been strongly disputed as nothing more than a shameless
fabrication. The broad sweep included even environmentalists and
Consumer Association spokesmen. Four of the most outspoken
newspapers -The Star, The Sunday Star, Watan and Sin Chew Jit Poh -
had their publishing licences suspended. When, after five months,
the papers were free to publish again, they were no longer the
same.
Mahathir's next move was to push
through Parliament far-reaching amendments to the Constitution so
that the Executive gained in power enormously at the expense of the
Judiciary. There was general indignation at this rude behaviour
which shocked a good many people. The indecent haste and the fact
that the amendments were made at a time when the Government's main
critics were in detention, including the Opposition Leader and six
vocal MPs and outspoken newspapers demoralized added further to the
appalling injustice of the situation. Tunku Abdul Rahman,
Malaysia's beloved first Prime Minister, put it succinctly: "It was
legal, but was it just?" Others noted angrily that the Constitution
had been raped once again. In a speech, the outgoing President of
the Bar Council, Param Cumaraswamy, said:
"The Prime Ministe's vile and
contemptuous allegations, and the accusations levelled at the
Judiciary and our judges left many shocked beyond belief. His
speech which was full of venom, hate and spite with no substance
whatsoever, illustrated his complete and total ignorance of the
role of the Judiciary and the judicial process itself. He has
indeed defiled and defaced the Constitution. It is surprising that
those 142 MPs who voted in favour, after taking the oath that they
would preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, had no
compunction about destroying one of its basic
structures."
One visiting parliamentarian was
astonished at the lack of public debate. In his own country, he
said, such amendments would have taken years.
Next, after having curbed the
independence of the Judiciary, Mahathir set about destroying its
integrity. This was the removal of Tun Salleh Abas as Lord
President in 1988, a move which Tunku Abdul Rahman described as
"the most shocking story in modern legal and judicial
history,"
Tun Salleh Abas was a man of
humble origins - his father was a sailor and small village trader -
who rose to become Lord President, the highest judge in the land
and head of the Judiciary while remaining a deeply religious
man.
By March 1988, Mahathir's
scandalous and violent public attacks on the Judiciary had so
provoked the judges that Tun Salleh was obliged to call a
conference. Twenty judges met in the Supreme Court one week after
the debilitating and shameful Constitutional amendments were made.
By unanimous agreement, a letter was drafted to the King (also the
Sultan of Johore) and copied to all Sultans, expressing disquiet
over various comments made by the Prime Minister. The letter was
delivered on 25 March and Tun Salleh left soon after for medical
treatment in the United States followed by a pilgrimage to Mecca.
He had a most important duty to perform upon his return: he fixed
the hearing of the crucial UMNO Eleven appeal for June and, because
of its overwhelming significance, decided that a full coram of nine
Supreme Court judges should hear this. Three days later, Tun Salleh
was suspended from his official capacity by the King on
recommendation of the Prime Minister. In the same hour that he
received the suspension letter, the Acting Lord President, Tan Sri
Abdul Hamid took the UMNO Eleven case out of the calendar so that
the link between the two was difficult to deny.
Tun Salleh's suspension came after
he refused to bow to Mahathir's pressure to either resign or
retire, even though financial inducements were offered, including
mention of a lucrative job in the International Development Bank in
Jeddah. The initial reason given for the suspension was that the
King had taken great displeasure over the letter Tun Salleh had
written on behalf of all judges. According to official records
prepared by the Attorney General, the King had requested Tun
Salleh's removal in an audience with the Prime Minister on the
"Wednesday morning of 1 May 1988" after the weekly Cabinet
Meeting.
There are serious doubts as to
whether this audience actually took place. The first of May 1988
fell on a Sunday, not Wednesday as the Attorney General recorded.
Even if the day of week were corrected, there can be no Cabinet
meeting on a Sunday. That the King expressed great displeasure only
on 1 May, when he had in fact received the letter on 25 March cast
further doubt over this assertion. It is difficult to believe that
the King wanted Tun Salleh removed purely because he had protested
about the public insults directed against the entire Judiciary by
the head of the Executive. In any event, royal displeasure would
not be a constitutionally valid ground for dismissal. Indeed,
Mahathir advised the King as much in a letter written four days
after this probably fictitious audience; however, the Prime
Minister went further in the same letter to say that he would
investigate Tun Salleh for any evidence of misbehaviour. In any
event, the King did not clear up the mystery and, in an audience
with Tun Salleh, actually asked the latter to step down without
giving reasons although the Conference of Rulers had already asked
for his reinstatement. Amazingly, Tun Salleh was suspended and a
Tribunal set up to determine his fate before any formal charges
were laid.
The Constitution does not provide
for the removal of a Lord President. While the Tribunal need not be
an inappropriate means, its composition was to say the least,
disgraceful. It was composed
of six acting and retired judges, although the Constitution required an odd
number to prevent deadlock. Of these -four from Malaysia,
one from Sri Lanka and one from
Singapore -only the Sri Lankan enjoyed a
rank comparable to Tun Salleh's. This was
contrary to the very reasonable dictum that one should be tried by
one's peers rather than one's juniors. The fact that two retired Lord Presidents of
Malaysia were available but not invited was glaring.
There were grave conflicts of interest with three of the
Malaysian judges that should have disqualified them from
sitting: Tan Sri Abdul Hamid
who was next in line to succeed as Lord President and who had also
participated in the conference of 20 judges which resulted in the
letter to the King; Tan Sri Zahir who, being also the Speaker of
the Lower House, was beholden to Mahathir, the principal
complainant in the matter at hand; and Tan Sri Abdul Aziz who,
although a former judge, was then a practising lawyer and, more
incredibly, had two suits pending against him at that time. But Tun
Salleh's objections were ignored and when the Bar Council issued a
statement calling for the Tribunal to be re-constituted, both the
New Straits Times and The Star refused to publish it. Further, it
was decided that the Tribunal would sit in closed sessions although
Tun Salleh had requested a public hearing.
The charges, when finally
published, were manifestly absurd. Running over 12 sheets of paper,
it was clear that quantity had been substituted where quality was
lacking, and some of them actually related to Tun Salleh's
behaviour after suspension. Many of them related to his speeches
and press interviews, whereby sinister meanings were imputed to
various innocuous comments that he had made. To cite an instance,
in a speech at the University of Malaya, he had said: "The role of
the courts is very important to bring about public order. If there
is no public order there will be chaos in this country and if there
is chaos, no one can feel safe" On this basis, Tun Salleh was
charged with making statements criticizing the Government which
displayed prejudice and bias against the latter. Another statement
of his, "In a democratic system, the courts play a prominent role
as agent of stability but they can perform this function only if
judges are trusted," resulted in the charge that he had ridiculed
the Government by imputing that it did not trust the judges. These
charges were doubly ludicrous in the light of Mahathir's many
poisonous attacks against the Judiciary.
It is not surprising that Tun
Salleh, after reading this catalogue of fantasy crimes, refused to
appear before what was so evidently a kangaroo court. The Tribunal,
after refusing representations made by Raja Aziz, Tun Salleh's
leading counsel, that it had no constitutional validity to sit,
chose instead to proceed so hastily that it wound up deliberations,
including the examination of witnesses with just four hours work.
As it prepared to issue its Report, Tun Salleh's lawyers sought an
urgent stay of proceedings in the High Court. This would normally
be granted immediately at the least possibility that an injustice
may be about to be done but, here, events turned into utter
farce.
Instead of immediately reaching a
decision as expected, the presiding judge, Datuk Ajaib Singh, after
the court had been in languorous session the whole day that Friday,
adjourned hearings for 9.30 am the next day. On Saturday however,
the judge emerged in court only at 11.50 am and, even then,
postponed hearings again for the Monday! In desperation, Tun
Salleh's lawyers, knowing that the Tribunal could easily release
its Report before then, sought the assistance of Supreme Court
judge, Tan Sri Wan Suleiman, in his Chambers. The latter agreed to
hear them in open court in half an hour's time and called a coram
of all remaining Supreme Court, one of whom, Tan Sri Hashim Yeop,
refused to sit. The soap opera reached an apogee of ridiculousness
when Tan Sri Abdul Hamid, head of the Tribunal and Acting Lord
President, gave orders for the doors of Supreme Court to be locked
and for the seal of the Supreme Court to be secreted
away!
Undeterred, the five Supreme Court
judges ordered the policeman on duty to open the door forthwith.
After less than half an hour, the Court ordered the Tribunal not to
submit any recommendation, report or advice to the King. Tun
Salleh's lawyers were typing the Order to serve personally to the
Tribunal at Parliament House when news arrived that the gates of
Parliament House had been locked! At this point, Justice Wan
Suleiman rose to the occasion and, calling the office of the
Inspector General of Police, told a senior officer that any
impediment to serving the Order would constitute contempt of court.
The gates of Parliament swung open and, at 4 pm, Raja Aziz and his
team served the Order to the Tribunal members who were found to be
still hard at work on a word-processor that Saturday afternoon. All
six members accepted service without complaint.
It would appear that justice had
at last prevailed but, four days later, all five Supreme Court
judges were suspended. Almost every rule that was broken to suspend
Tun Salleh was broken again to suspend them. The prohibition order
they had made were revoked within days. A second Tribunal
eventually reinstated three of the judge: Tan Sri Azmi Kamaruddin,
Tan Sri Eusoff Abdoolcader and Tan Sri Wan Hamzah but Tan Sri Wan
Suleiman and Datuk George Edward Seah were removed from
office.
Source : http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/5544/mayday.htm
The fact that the past Singapore Government - under LKY
- had participated in this shameful
act instigated by PM Mahathir to neutralise the
Malaysian judiciary for the personal political ambitions
of PM Mahathir - will require a similar apology from this
present Singapore Government for the past mistakes and
injustices made by LKY in support of Mahathir.
From the moment the Tribunal was formed, the various members
that were put in place to constitute the tribunal - it was obvious
that most of the judges have reputations of
having continuous allegiance to their respective
Government's political agenda - with the exception of the judge
from Sri Lanka, who was the only judge in the tribunal that held
completely dissenting opinions from the others.
1988 Malaysian Constitutional Crisis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Malaysian_constitutional_crisis
