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(The Star) - The Government is serious about improving the justice system. It has set up a committee to get reforms going within the system.
For a start, de facto law minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim said, the committee had proposed that the courts be stricter about granting of postponements and stop fixing excessive bail sums for criminal cases. The Government, he said, had given its green light for the implementation of the two proposals and there were a string of reforms waiting to be executed once the relevant laws were amended. Zaid said the Government was also looking seriously at encouraging the public to use the mediation process as a means of resolving disputes, and legitimatising plea-bargaining for criminal cases. “The Government has plans to make mediation a successful system. Court cases cost time and money,” he said during a special briefing session for the press yesterday. Zaid said the committee would be looking at options like allowing lawyers to become arbitrators at a nominal fee to speed up the disposal of cases or allowing plea-bargaining and pre-trial conference in criminal cases. “We have agreed to employ mediation process. A Mediation Act will be drafted soon to encourage people to use alternative methods for dispute resolution rather than file cases in courts. “As for plea-bargaining, we have already agreed. It is now a matter of amending the Criminal Procedure Code,” he said. The new committee – called High Powered Committee on Backlog of Cases – which focuses on implementing ways to better the justice system, had its inaugural meeting earlier this month. Committee members included the Solicitor-General, Chief Registrar of the Federal Court, the Malaysian Bar’s vice-president and former Bar president Datuk Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari. Zaid said the bail sum issued by the courts must be a realistic amount so that those who could afford to raise bail need not languish in the prisons while waiting for trial. “The more prisoners we have, the more taxpayers have to pay for prison costs. Why should they?” he said. On judges’ accountability, Zaid stressed that while the Government supported that judges be allowed to manage themselves using their Code of Ethics, the “self management of performance (by judges) had to be done transparently”. “Judges are not untouchables. The public expect them to do the job. “We do not tell them how to write the judgments but the system that they adopt in self management must be subjected to public scrutiny,” he said. He said an efficient and transparent system could only exist if the public, including the press, are more critical and participative in checking the system and providing a balance. Asked whether the critics would suffer backlashes from such acts, like being accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act or sued for defamation, Zaid said that time had changed and people in higher positions should stop using the law to cover up their own inefficiencies. “We are now in the first world era. Accountability matters and it means you have the prerogative to decide but you must explain or account for your decision. “This is what the Government is doing now. We want to have a broader reform, not just on appointment of judges and restoring judicial powers to the courts,” he said.
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settle Altantuya's murder case first..
only then you will gain people respect..
right sir RPK?
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