PUTRAJAYA (Sept 15): The judiciary, led by Chief Justice Tun Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh, on Tuesday paid tribute to three former chief justices and the first female chief judge of Malaya who served the country, while pledging to uphold the legacies they left behind.
Wan Ahmad Farid quoted Francis Bacon’s essay Of Judicature, in which Bacon wrote that the office of judges has reference to four parties: “The parties that sue, to the advocates that plead, to the clerks and ministers of justice beneath them and to the sovereign or the state above them.”
“A country may have courts. It may have judges. It may have a building as fine as this Palace of Justice. None of that proves anything at all.
“An institution earns its standing only through the character and conduct of those entrusted with it. A judiciary is not built merely of marble and mahogany but upon the legacies of our judicial predecessors,” he said.
The Chief Justice said this during a reference proceeding held to mark the passing of former chief justices Tun Mohd Eusoff Chin, Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah and Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad, and former chief judge of Malaya Tan Sri Siti Norma Yaakob.
Eusoff passed away on Aug 7, Abdul Hamid on Jan 19 and Siti Norma on March 13 this year, while Dzaiddin passed away on July 11, 2024.
Also present at the event were Attorney General Tan Sri Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar, Malaysian Bar vice president Murshidah Mustafa and family members of the late four judges.
Wan Ahmad Farid said Eusoff embodied Bacon’s first duty, the duty owed to the party who sues, and reduced it to something unglamorous and absolutely fundamental: that a court must actually sit and sit on time.
“He (Eusoff) introduced a clocking-in system for judges, which former lord president Tun Suffian Hashim reportedly told him amounted to treating judges like children. But Tun Eusoff was not discouraged.
“When punctuality outside Kuala Lumpur proved uneven, he phoned judges’ quarters early in the morning and told whoever answered that the judge’s good friend, Eusoff, was on the line. Punctuality, I am told, improved remarkably. No more golfing at 2pm on a working day,” he said when describing Eusoff.
The Chief Justice said Dusuki recalled how Eusoff, at the age of 87, had expressed how he wanted to be remembered: as a fair man and a judge who treated his staff with kindness.
“I repeat it for one reason only: it was a request, and a request made to a court is entitled to an answer. That is Bacon’s third duty, the duty owed to the clerks and the ministers of justice beneath us — answered by a man who had nothing left to prove,” he added.
Dzaiddin inherited the task of putting the house in order
With regard to Dzaiddin, who succeeded Eusoff, the Chief Justice said the former police inspector and journalist with the Malay Mail, who was the first from the Bar to be appointed as chief justice, had a duty to “put the house [court] in order”.
In keeping with Bacon’s four duties, the duty owed to advocates was one that Dzaiddin fulfilled.
Upon Dzaiddin’s ascension as chief justice, Wan Ahmad Farid said he told all judges in the country that letters of complaint had already been received about judges whose conduct, on and off the Bench, lacked courtesy, restraint and propriety.
“His mission, Dzaiddin said, was to return the judiciary to a time when it was respected as good, strong, efficient, incorruptible and just.
“He understood justice not only as judges see it but also through the eyes of the public. In my humble view, Tun Dzaiddin taught the judiciary to listen again,” Wan Ahmad Farid added.
Abdul Hamid: Bridge between civil and shariah law
Wan Ahmad Farid described Abdul Hamid as having fulfilled what Bacon described as a duty owed to the sovereign and the state.
He said a judge must know both the reach and the limits of judicial power.
“Bacon’s best-known reminder to judges is that judicial office is jus dicere, not jus dare — to interpret the law, not to make it. Tun Abdul Hamid placed the same principle on the cover of one of his books; in three direct words: Hakim bukan Parlimen (Judges are not Parliament),” he said.
Abdul Hamid, when he was a judge, wrote 567 judgements, eight books and more than 500 speeches and working papers.
Wan Ahmad Farid said Abdul Hamid’s work on the relationship between the shariah and civil jurisdictions, collected in Konflik dan Pengharmonian, continues to guide judges when called upon to decide where one jurisdiction ends and the other begins.
“This is no small inheritance. His proposal on the reference of shariah questions, as both the AG and the Bar have said, became Sections 51 to 58 of the Central Bank of Malaysia Act.
“A judge’s idea that ended as law; but by the proper route, through Parliament, not from the Bench. It remains one of his most lasting contributions to Malaysian law,” Wan Ahmad Farid said of Abdul Hamid’s contributions.
The Chief Justice said that although Abdul Hamid served as the top judicial officer for less than a year, his motto was two words.
“Buat kerja (Do your work). To him, actions speak louder than words. An institution must earn public confidence in exactly the same way. Respect should not come easily with mere conferment of titles.
“It must be earned through competent and often unglamorous discharge of duty. Now the work is for us (the judiciary) to uphold,” Wan Ahmad Farid said.
Siti Norma: A lady of many firsts
Wan Ahmad Farid credited Siti Norma as a lady of many firsts in the country. She was the first Malay woman barrister to be called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn in 1962, and the first woman to hold an executive post in the Judicial and Legal Service in 1963.
“Siti Norma was the first female Sessions Court president in 1967 and later, in 1980, became the first female chief registrar of the Federal Court, the first female High Court judge in 1983, the first woman to sit in the newly formed Court of Appeal in 1994, the first woman elevated to the Federal Court in 2001 and chief judge of Malaya in February 2005,” he said.
“Her distinction extended beyond retirement and our shores. She was the first Malaysian elected president of the Commonwealth Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association in 2006 and, in 2008, the first female judge from Malaysia to be appointed to the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts.
“She was also the inaugural chairman of the Malaysia Competition Commission (MyCC) after its establishment in 2011,” Wan Ahmad Farid said of Siti Norma’s achievements.
The Bar, Wan Ahmad Farid reminded those present, had highlighted Siti Norma’s traits of patience and incorruptibility, embodying Bacon’s second duty, the duty of hearing, where he wrote that “patience and gravity of hearing is an essential part of justice and that an over-speaking judge is no well-tuned cymbal.”
“Four lives have been placed before us today. Tun Eusoff Chin gave this judiciary discipline. Tun Dzaiddin set about restoring its trust. Tun Abdul Hamid gave lasting expression to principle and to restraint. Tan Sri Siti Norma gave us the whole nation to draw our judges from. Not one of those four things is sufficient on its own.
“These four jurists are a substantial part of the proof. They have done their part. It now falls to us to do ours for those who come after,” he reminded his fellow judges, before thanking the families of the late judges who attended the reference.