Tengku Maimun Our Catalyst To Talk About The Judiciary

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 Ladies and gentlemen, let me explain to you how democracy works.
There are four branches when it comes to government - the executive (the prime minister and the cabinet), legislative (Parliament), judiciary (the judges and judicial system) and media (journalists, news organisations and social media).
Also, in a working democracy, all of these four branches would be independent of each other, and the reason for this is that none of these branches is supposed to have absolute power over the other.
So each of them needs to be watchdogs that keep the others in check.
ADSEven the prime minister and the cabinet are not supposed to have absolute power and need to be kept in check by others.
All branches have a responsibility to voice out and take action if any of them step out of line, make a mistake or do something that is out of their jurisdiction.
As a journalist, I take my work quite seriously (although I don’t take myself too seriously!) as the fourth branch. I deserve the right (along with everyone) to express my opinions and call out those who need to be called out on.
Since I also teach journalism students, I always stress this to them.
Ongoing public discourse
So, who can blame a judge who, when asked to speak about legal and judicial matters, would speak about the importance of how the executive should not interfere with the judiciary? Is it not just common sense, and who else would be more credible to speak about it anyway?
We will never know if anyone making comments these past few days regarding the issue of former chief justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat being denied an extension of her tenure is actually telling us the true story.
However, that isn’t important. What is important is that it has sparked a public discourse.
Every now and again, we need to be reminded of the fact that the four branches need to be independent of each other. The issue must always be fresh in the minds of the people, and the four branches need to be reminded of the fact of their responsibilities and jurisdictions.
When the former chief justice’s statements became the talk of the town, everyone responded, including the executive.
Obviously, this has become a stern reminder to everyone involved that the people will constantly be observing and monitoring how they are administering the country.
ADSConstitutional change needed
This issue has also brought back into discussion the need to amend the Federal Constitution to establish the fact that the executive must, in no way at all, be influencing the selection of justices in the judiciary, and the executive has had to respond and answer to these demands.
It has been reported that there are proposals to amend the Judicial Appointments Commission Act 2009 and the Federal Constitution with the objective of eliminating the prime minister’s role in the process. Hopefully, this will be done as fast as possible for our benefit.
If we can’t blame the former chief justice for being the catalyst of this discourse, then nobody can blame me for now stating that this important discourse would not get this amount of attention from and by the people if it wasn’t for the fourth branch of democracy, which is the media.
All said and done, I am grateful that Tengku Maimun has done all that she has done. A good democracy obviously needs to have all the checks and balances in place, or it needs to show the perception that the proper checks and balances are happening.
At the very least, it needs to realise that changes must happen and put into action the steps to make those changes.
A good democracy needs to constantly be evolving and improving according to the needs of the people, and the key word here is the “people”.
No more does it serve the politicians. - Mkini
ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and academic. Visit fatbidin.com to view his work.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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