Of Judges, KPIs, Justice and Superficiality
Art Harun
“I want to ensure that justice is produced fast. Clear the backlog. If I can do this, then I would be very happy.” – Tun Zaki, Chief Justice, Malaysia.
As far as mission statement goes, the above sounds good. It signals an aim, namely, justice must be produced fast. Then it spells out the mechanic by which that aim is to be achieved, namely, by clearing the backlog. Lastly but surely not the least, it states the overall impact of the mission, once achieved. The CJ will be happy.
With 900,000 cases pending in the lower courts and 91,000 cases in the High Courts (2008 figures), the concern about delays in the Courts is understandable. After all, justice delayed is justice denied. The CJ therefore has taken it upon himself to clear the backlog of the cases.
Throughout my years of practice, I have seen at least 7 Chief Justices (the position was called Lord Presidents before) come and go. Invariably, each new Chief Justice had the same resolution upon being elevated to his position. One even went to the Scandinavian countries to study on ways and means to reduce backlog. When we have a neighbour just about 300 kilometres away who have solved the backlog problem one wonders why we would want to travel to such far away land. But then again, we love study trips. Needless to say the backlog stayed. And in fact it got worse.
There was another one who said we would computerise the Courts. And soon we saw computer monitors, slim microphones and mini speakers springing up in Court rooms. I walked into one those days and I had to call my assistant to make sure that she had not sent me into a recording studio. Again, the backlog stayed.
Then there was the effort to increase the number of Judges. The idea was simple and basic. If there were many Judges, surely many more cases could be disposed off, no? Well, yes and no. A big NO, in fact. There were Judges those days who actually measured the margins on the court papers to ensure that it was one inch in width! Anything less would be struck out for non-compliance with the High Court Rules 1980. Then there was one who actually wanted all submissions before him be typed in fonts 13!
There was also one who scolded my opponent in front of me for referring to the Akta Syarikat as the “Companies Act.” That guy actually left practice soon after. There was another Court which had actually rejected my bundle of authorities because my separator was not white in colour. I was told that according to the rules, all papers filed must be white in colour. Now, if the separators are white, would they be called separators then? I am not kidding. These are true accounts. Needless to say, the backlog stayed. Until now.
Regardless of the ways and means employed by the Chief Justices, there are however a discernible pattern to the approach. Firstly, count the number of cases. Then blame the lawyers for delaying the cases by unnecessarily applying to postpone them. Then set a target – which was normally unachievable – of the number of cases to be disposed off within a specific period of time. Then sit down and see the paint drying. The result? Utter failure!
