Saturday, April 16, 2011

Muamalat Monitoring System

*Monitoring In Progress*
I had always wondered why monitor lizards are called… monitor lizards.
That’s what I would call my class monitor when I was in high school when he starts to ‘monitor’ the class. Hehehe. Kesian Akmal. Huhu…
(Akmal was my coolest Class Monitor... Dia rock!)
Monitoring seems to be the main word at the division I am currently attached to. It was agreed by my previous predecessors that the files at the Muamalat Court must be monitored closely to avoid any sleeping files.
Yes. Files do fall asleep too. Just like babies and pandas. The only problem is that a file would not wake up on its own. It needs to be nudged by someone else, someone who has interest in the said file. Unfortunately, those interested with that file are also asleep sometimes so after a loooooong slumber, when the Court decides to wake that file, we realize that it is actually not sleeping anymore. Its dead.
So that’s why we monitor the files closely. We would give dates after dates until the file is finally closed. Even if it is only to file an affidavit, we would fix a mention date for the counsel to come and tell us that they have already done as per instructed at the previous date.
Tedious and time consuming. But it works. When parties are closely monitored, they would comply with all of the instructions given. Most of them do. There are some yang memang tak makan saman. These are the cases where we pay ‘extra’ attention.
I try to assist those who appeared before me as much as I can. Say if the instruction requires 12 days minimum for it to be matured. The next date before me should be the next 12 days. I would give the counsel about 3-5 days extra so that they could file in whatever is necessary and then email me the proof that they had already complied with the Court’s instructions. Thereafter, I would reply to them and vacate the next date. Senang la sikit tak payah nak appear for every single instructions. The reason why there is the tight monitoring system is to control the number of sleeping files. If the file is wide awake, then common sense dictates that the monitoring system should be more relax. Using technology, I even try to make it as simple as possible. And sometimes, it takes 10 minutes to explain to the counsels this process. It seems too easy for the Court to vacate a date and they are not too comfy with the idea of emailing stuff and vacating dates virtually. I guess changes takes time... kan?
Two inter-related incidents happened last week. All because of the Muamalat monitoring system.
Incident One
One counsel appeared and requested a long date because there are talks on settlement. After informing her that Muamalat Court would not allow for long adjournments, I asked her if the settlement proposal is really genuine or is simply to delay the matter. She was quite sure that the settlement would materialize.
I then stroked my computer monitor (note: even a computer screen is called a monitor… LoL) and asked my monitor whether I should grant her a long mention date.
Komputer oooH Komputer… boleh ke bagi peguam ni tarikh panjang???
She laughed as I tried to ‘pujuk’ my monitor for a long date. Luckily my monitor was feeling rather chirpy and it allowed for a long date.
Incident Two
The same lawyer appeared but this time her opponent was also present. Again she asked for a long date because of a settlement proposal. (From her statistics, it appears that she is quite good in getting an out of court settlement. 2 out of 2!)
To be honest, I had already forgotten about the “pujuk” monitor incident.
Suddenly I heard her say softly to her opponent:
Wait… two_one has to pujuk his computer first for the long date”.
I laughed and remembered the “pujuk” incident and started to pujuk my monitor for a long date.
She laughed.
But not her opponent though.
Her opponent thought that the discretion to give the next date is the computer’s decision.
You mean you cannot decide on the date and the computer will decide???” she asked sincerely…
LoL.
I’m very happy with technology. But that is too advance for me!
For now, it’s back to the monitoring of cases via our monitors just like a monitor lizard.
Blog adjourned.

1 obiter dictum: