The Cabinet must prove Tun Dr. Mahathir wrong that it is “half-past six’ by establishing a wide-ranging and unfettered Royal Commission of Inquiry on Wednesday to deal with the root-and-branch problem of the crisis of confidence in the judiciary going back for 19 years and not just deal with the “tip of the iceberg” of the Lingam Tape.
International Islamic University constitutional law expert Professor Dr. Abdul Aziz Bari is right his interview with New Sunday Times in describing the Lingam Tape as “just the tip of the iceberg” after the state of the judiciary after 1988.
This led to the question — “If the video clip is the tip, what is the iceberg?” and the following answer in “Putting confidence back in judiciary”:
“A: How the people are selecting the judges, how the judges are having behind-closed-door relationships with lawyers, and how lawyers manage to predict or determine the outcome of cases.
“This is something very serious when it comes to suits. If this is the case, then people won’t have confidence in the judiciary.
“The judiciary’s strength is the public’s confidence. In law, you don’t have to establish bias: if the person cannot convince you of his or her integrity, then he’s got to disqualify himself.
“The mere likelihood (of bias) is good enough to establish a real bias. The moment it (the confidence) is lost, it is difficult to get it back.”
Earlier in the interview, there was a specific Q & A on the “scope of the inquiry”, viz:
“Q: What should be the scope of the inquiry?
“A: Since the matter is very much connected to independence, integrity and corruption, then these are the things that should be looked at, not just to establish whether the video clip is authentic.”
The de facto Law Minister, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz has stated his position many times that he saw nothing wrong with the judiciary apart from the isolated case of the Lingam Tape incident.
It would appear that Nazri had been sleeping for 19 years about the state of the judiciary in the country.
The question is whether all the other Ministers in the mega-Cabinet of 33 are of the same mind as Nazri, also sleeping through the past 19 years of the two-decade-long crisis after crisis over the independence and integrity of the judiciary, completely unaware or dared not be aware of the repeated plunge in national and international confidence in Malaysian judiciary?
Furthermore, will the Cabinet on Wednesday limit the Royal Commission of Inquiry just to the Lingam Tape instead of giving it completely unfettered powers to deal with the branch-and-root problem of the 19-year crisis of confidence in the judiciary, confirming beyond a shadow of doubt Mahathir’s condemnation of it as a “half-past six Cabinet”?