Bad Apples

*sigh*

I’m very sad and perturbed with what just happened.

I posted this a few days ago. Read it carefully. I didn’t make any wild allegations. I mentioned a couple of specific instances which I know for a fact happened. Some court instances. I stress again, it actually happened.

Then I explained how I thought I would feel if I was the client engaged to that sort of a lawyer. I didn’t say that each and every one advocate and solicitor in Malaysia was like that. That’s an absurd proposition and a blasphemy to my beloved profession. A profession which gels the private and public side of it towards justice.

I even gave a simple suggestion on how my learned friends from the private sector could benefit. I gave an insight on how one could learn the public private practice works.

However, a few friends of mine read it in a different tone. They read like I made a ridiculous accusation towards “their” private practice. In fact, there shouldn’t be any friction between the two practices. The law would develop better if both sides work together towards justice.

As much as I hate bad apples, they exist in every profession. It so happened that I decided to mention about it in my previous post. I know there are also bad apples in the public legal profession. Isn’t it my right not to discuss it together with the bad apples in the private sector? This is my virtual chambers. I dictate what I want to write here. It’s my prerogative to do so. (And for the record, I approve all of my comments. So don’t accuse me of something which you don’t know for sure I do or do not do.)

You are certainly free to agree or to disagree with my opinion. In fact, I appreciate it if you disagree and if you could state your arguments against mine. Hence the reason I did not object (although my consent was never sought for) when my university classmate decided to scoop my post and “open” it to be further discussed ‘by lawyers’ on Facebook. Infringement of intellectual property? I reserve my comment on this.

However, my appreciation to read other people’s disagreement was short lived when I saw how negative she headed her notes with my post as its substance. It created a feeling that the whole private legal sector was under attack by me. She requested for the lawyers to DEFEND themselves from what the Judiciary actually think the problem is.

"this was written by another person and I together with a few friends felt that some of the statements made towards lawyers as a whole, in general is tad too, ah well, u decide. do drop a line or two..."

Funny.

Lawyers as a whole?? I think that is certainly misleading. Because of this statement, everyone read the post in a negative manner.

For one, I’m a lawyer too. Two, there is nothing to defend when there is no charge framed against the legal fraternity. Three, did she not read the heading of my blog when I said that “The opinions found in this blog are strictly from the blogger's humble mental capability. Should you find it against any Laws, (Malaysian Law especially!) the former opinion (i.e. the blogger's opinion) should not prevail. Anything mentioned here should not be taken as a form of legal advice. It’s mostly rubbish that cannot even be recycled.”? Where is her basis to say that my post was the Judiciary’s point of view?

I thought for a while and decided to let it be. I wanted to know how such a post would fare in the eyes of a few legal eagles in Malaysia.

Suffice for me to say, after reading the comments that there are a few who would stoop very very low to cast some personal attacks to the author of the post (as she didn’t mention my name as the author, but then people figured it out). Probably because if you read the post carefully, there was no allegations made to the whole legal fraternity and the examples cited were specific and actually did happened. So how can you refute an actual fact? By attacking the character of the person who alleges it. Simple cross examination methodology!

And so some of them did.

My, weren’t they ferocious. The best part is that, some of them don’t even know me! When I told this to the Bride, she logged on to Facebook and read the comments. She decided to drop a comment as well. Apparently, the person responsible with the whole thing was not happy when the Bride gave her two cents. She started to attack the Bride personally too.

To my mind, what the person responsible for the whole Facebook thingy said about the Bride was too rude to be true. I was so disappointed with what she said what she said that I have decided to abstain from further commenting on her Facebook notes.

How can my own classmate attack me and the Bride like that is beyond my imagination. I could never have fathom the idea that someone I know would go down so low just to hurt other’s feelings. I just don’t see the reason for her to do so.

If she wanted to just hurt my feelings by attacking the Bride like that, WELL DONE is all I have to say.

“this is for lawyers to defend themselves pon kan?” poodah.

I never knew that you, as a legally trained person, one who knows how the ethics to debate could not even be open to a layman’s point of view.

I hope the others who know me would not condone to such atrocity, especially to the Bride. If they do, I’d rather they bugger off and pretend not to know me at all after this.

I couldn’t care less for the other girl’s comment which came after her. Apparently she attacked the Bride and when on a shooting spree at me personally. I said ‘apparently’ because it was too full of anger I decided not to finish reading it. From the way she started her comment, I think she didn’t even read my post. Or maybe if she did, she couldn’t understand it.

You can say that rest of the commentators were being objective. They realise that there was at least an ounce of truth in what I posted (although I feel that the whole thing is right and accurate, but that’s my opinion) so they didn’t attack my examples but they concentrated their attack to the subject of the matter (and not the subject matter) i.e. draft order’s problems and missing court files. That’s fair considering there was nothing valid for them to pluck from the specific examples that I have cited.

So, again I stress that I made no allegations towards the legal fraternity. I just mentioned that there are some who can be considered as “bad apples”. In fact, there are “bad apples” on both side of the fence. Everyone knows that.

One thing that I realised is that people can really show their dark side if you shove some bad apples in their face.

Blog adjourned.

Please All, And You Will Please None

Criticisms against the Judiciary never seem to stop.

A few years ago, when I was still a student, I remember reading the papers that court cases take too long to be settled. Courts would postpone cases without giving any concrete reasons. Hence the reason when the Big Boss took over about a year ago, the first mandate that he gave was to continue the previous CJ, Tun Abdul Hamid’s secular on no last minute postponements. Then lawyers complained requesting for some time before the strict compliance of the policy. The Big Boss said no and continued the no last minute postponements and took other steps to improve the efficiency of the Judiciary.

He would slip in the steps taken in the speeches that he made when Judges are appointed. He made it an open thing. But the media fell short from reporting it:

“tak boleh jual lah cerita ini. Negative punye story baru boleh jual. Story kerajaan / kehakiman buat bagus siapa nak baca… cerita Hakim kena tangkap makan rasuah, kes rogol, kes bunuh, kes sumbang mahram, kes liwat barula ada commercial value… reduce backlog saper kisah…”

These are amongst the reasons what journalist would tell me when I ask them why there is nothing about the Judiciary when information has already been provided.

Instead, I heard that there are lawyers who are complaining that the court cases are moving too fast. That they don’t have time to attend to all of their matters and can’t attend all the early dates given by the court.

Funny eh?

A few years ago they complaint that cases take too long to settle. Now they complaint it’s too fast. But these are not the voices of the majority members of the Bar. The Bar Council and the respective State Bars welcomes the improvements of the Judiciary. It’s just a small percentage of the lawyers who are not too happy with the improvements.

So they complaint. Complaint to whom? Siapa lagi? Complaint to those who believes that they could sell negative stories about the Judiciary lah…

So the criticism continues.

I asked the Big Boss about this. Dengan sardinenya he told me this story while we were walking to catch our plane back to KL:

A man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: "You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?"

So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: "See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides."

So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn't gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: "Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along."

Well, the Man didn't know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: "Aren't you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of you and your hulking son?"

The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey's feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.

“That will teach you," said an old man who had followed them:

"Please all, and you will please none”.

Blog adjourned.

Hard(est) Work...

Last weekend, my mini family checked in a nice five star hotel for one night. It was the least I could do after having to leave them for the so many weekends. It was so much fun just lazing around in the room and devote your full attention to each other even if it was just for one night. We ordered room service, posed and took photos, sleep, had breakfast, and all the normal stuff but in a different environment.

It was my first holiday with my mini family and I enjoyed it!

Working in the government sector, particularly the Judiciary, is certainly not like any other government agency. That’s why when I heard someone saying that “Eleh, kerja kerajaan asyik kursus-kursus-kursus… kerja tak jalan” I just had to control my burning desire to punch him in his face and tell him to fu*k off. Nak kutuk boleh, tapi janganlah fitnah macam tu skali.

I think it is fair to say that some of the public service has improved, particularly the Judiciary.

Judges, officers from the judicial and legal service, supporting staffs and even lawyers (although they form part of the private service) have been working extremely hard for over the past one year. Matters which would usually take a few years to settle now can be disposed of within a few months. I heard that senior lawyers now have to send their juniors to attend court matters as they are tied up with cases. This allows the young lawyers to gain beneficial court experience instead of just doing research.

A month ago, one lawyer was reported to have said that he completed 8 full trials within a few months. His clients is happy to move on with their lives, the court is happy to clear of their backlog of cases and he is happy as he could close the file and collect his fees.

With all these positive changes, and plenty more to come, that’s why I get quite upset when there are some jokers who say that we, the Judiciary officers (and judges included) who are also government servants, just go for kursus and not do our work.

Heck I’m quite sure we work even harder than you!

Blog adjourned.

Nobody Is Perfect

Nobody Is Perfect.
We often get this response when someone has screwed up his or her work. It’s a gentle reminder that no one can complete something without any flaw. Then again, most of the time, it’s just an excuse.
I say it is an excuse unless and until one can actually prove that he had tried his level best, covered every possible angle to commit an error and still, a mistake occurred.
At the High Court at Kuala Lumpur, over a few hundred draft orders are filed on a daily basis. Most of the drafts are approved, processed and returned within the next few days. Some are returned because of the silly mistakes made by the lawyers like stating a different amount from the statement of claim, giving a totally different Magistrate or Judge’s name. Just to sidetrack, I think everyone would agree with me when I say that having a typo error in someone’s name can be really irritating. It is even worse when the name of the judicial officer is placed before the bench in CAPITAL LETTERS and the lawyer appeared before that particular judge could either misspelled the judges name or better yet, write a different name altogether! Come on man! Kalau dah salah tulis nama, macam mana judge tu nak approve lu punya order kan? Please do not expect the staff to correct your drafts as it is not their duty to do so. The current instruction is to return any flawed draft orders. Why burden the staff to do what the lawyers are supposed to do for their clients (and collecting fees for such work)? Not fair isn’t it?
And don’t come back to tell the Court that nobody is perfect. We don’t care whether you are perfect or not. But your draft order must be perfect before we process it.
Another thing is this. How many of the private sector lawyers know the differences between a Senior Assistant Registrar, Deputy Registrar, Senior Registrar of the Session / Magistrate Courts, Magistrate, Chief Clerk and Pembantu Tadbir Undang-undang?
I must admit that when I started service, I didn’t much about these designations. But as soon as I started working, I realized how important it is to know the hierarchy of these designations and the jurisdiction that comes with it. So I learned the duties of each designation. I doubt if you can get it in any books but asking around sure helps.
If you are told by a clerk that your file is missing, how many of you would just go back to your office and tell your client that your case was postponed because the file is missing and how many would go and ask either the SAR / DR regarding the accurate status of the file?
Most of the complaints of missing files that reaches the Palace Of Justice were not even missing. Upon investigation, it shows that the lawyer did not check with any officer and just took the word of the interpreter or clerk that the “file takda!”. They don’t even know that they should go to the Registrar / SAR / DR when there is any problem relating to the administration of their files / cases. They don’t even know what in the world is Registrar / SAR / DR what more who these individuals are! And then they have the cheek to inform their client that the court misplaced the file and it is now missing!
Sedih… tapi benar…
So my suggestion is this.
Go and learn the roles and responsibilities of Judicial Officers. You must know the right person to refer if you are in trouble. It is extremely important that you know this piece of knowledge if you want to be able to fulfill your duties to your client. If I had a lawyer, and my lawyer kept telling me that my file in court is missing, I’d be damned pissed. I’d be even more pissed if I knew that my lawyer didn’t do anything to check with the appropriate officer the actual status of my file.
It’s true that nobody is perfect. But that does not mean everyone can slack now can they?
Blog adjourned.

Football Fever

A few days ago, the Bride and I brought our little girl for her monthly jab. She was sleeping the whole time when the doctor was explaining to us about rashes, baby vomit (or muak) and other veksodukolokehapebende jabs necessary for her.
Then when the doctor wanted to check her, she opened her eyes slightly just to peek at the doctor. When the doctor started to spray some alcohol on her thigh to get her ready for the jab, she started to give the what-are-you-going-to-do-to-me-mister kind of look. As the doctor begun to insert the needle, my daughter got the whole clinic to know that her monthly jab is certainly painful. She screamed so loud that I was so proud of her fully developed lungs.
But it was only a short scream, because soon after, she stopped as she was herself unsure what had happened. As I picked her up, she started to look around wondering what just happened. Funny lah she.
Today, the Bride text me that the little one has a slight temperature. Kesian… dah kena jab demam pulak…
It’s all right. Part and parcel of growing up. Kan?

Oh!
People always say “from a bird’s eyeview” but below, I managed to capture what it would be like from a “baby’s eyeview”…

Whadya think? No?? Hahaha…

Oh oh!
Today I received my first daddy gift. Uncle D dropped by and gave me the coolest daddy present ever! Check it out!

Cool tak?
I have not taken it off since… and I’m not planning to do so anytime soon. It matches with her blanket dress that her Tia got for her from Old Trafford!
These two new Manchester United signings are certainly ready for the some live life games!
Yeah! Come on MANCHESTER UNITED!

I guess her hot temperature is just some heavy dose of football fever...

Blog adjourned.