The New Economic Theory

*I like Mars... :) *

The Sun’s headlines yesterday (17^th February 2011) caught my attention: Legal Fees To Soar.

This was the Bar Council’s President, Mr. Ragunath Kesavan’s response to the Chief Justice’s statement a couple of days ago. If I had not known the both of them to be on a very professional friendship, I’d thought it was written as a threat to the Judiciary’s efficiency.

 A funny response it is.

When I was at INCEIF doing my CIFP, I found that in most books, lectures or articles that is about efficiency, the end result is to reduce costs and not to increase it.

I’ll give a simple example about the Judiciary. This I have seen with my own eyes. Previously, because there were about 13 staffs handling the Court of Appeal files, there were 13 different ways of maintaining the files. The files are kept here there and everywhere in the file room and only known to the individual who was in charge of the file. Files don’t usually get missing but if one of the 13 staffs was on leave or on medical leave, the others do not know where to find and how to do his responsibilities. The development of the case was at times slowed down tremendously because of one staff.

Then there were some development at the Court of Appeal registry. From 13 staffs, the Chief Justice reduced it to 3-4 staffs. Gone were the 13 different ways of handling the files when a single uniformed and efficient new system was introduced. All the 3-4 staffs knew the work of each other.

The workload at the Court of Appeal registry remains the same when there were 13 staffs and with the new system of 3-4 staffs. This meant that the competency of 3-4 staffs were equivalent to the previous 13 staffs earlier on.

With the new efficient system, the number of staff (and most importantly, the costs of hiring and maintaining the staffs) can be reduced. The remaining staffs can then be utilized at other places.

All right, all right, spit it out. I know you are saying that the example I gave above is not similar to the work of a lawyer.

And some of you defensive and kolot people would also say, “Dia ni apa tau? Dia bukan pernah jadi lawyer pun. Duduk kat sana tau nak manage case saja. Bengong punya orang! Sebab tu dah tak kerja kat POJ and kena hantar balik ke KL. Dia tu yang tak efficient.” And many other personal things. This has happened before. Childish.

LoL.

Suka hatila nak kata apa.

But please, hear me out.

I think that the concept of raising legal fees should not be because we now have an efficient Judiciary. To claim that the legal fees should be higher because of an efficient Judiciary is akin to saying that its inefficiency will result in the low cost of legal fees. I feel that saying this is an insult to the members of the Bar. Are you saying that lawyers are able to charge low fees because the court is inefficient and matters take years and years to settle and that legal fees should be 300-400% higher because cases can settle faster?

If this is so, then why is it that most mitigation (in a criminal case) in requesting for a lower punishment when the accused pleaded guilty is because such guilty plea has saved the Court and Counsel’s time?

This is because in time, there is value for money. The longer time spent, the higher cost it should be borne. Not otherwise. If there is no time value for money, there would be no inflation. But that’s a slightly different story probably for some other time.

Common sense dictates that when a case is settled early because of an efficient Judiciary system, you consume less time and energy. Of course you may feel lethargic and tired because the amount of time and energy used is condensed, concise and that you are constrained in a short duration of time as compared to breaking it apart into many different segments with a long gap in between. However, the total hours spent for a case with an efficient Judiciary system is, and I am certainly sure of this, much less than with an inefficient Judiciary system. Doing away with all the unnecessary postponements is a time saver.

I challenge you to prove me wrong on this point and if proven, I will write a specific post to indicate that my common sense is not common to your senses. So who’s senses are common to the society then?

I fail to see how the introduction of CRT is translated into higher costs for lawyers as they have to do the transcription on their own. As far as I am concerned, the Judiciary is ready to accept the recording of the proceedings as the notes of proceedings. This means that the Judiciary acknowledges the ardent task of watching the video of the trial in preparing our decisions and grounds of judgment. Some lawyers prefer to transcribe it for their own convenience. It is very unfair to blame the Judiciary when it is you who are responsible in wanting the luxury of reading the hardcopy of notes of proceedings.

Be that as it may, there are a few transcribing companies mushrooming from this niche market and one of it is Scribe Enterprise jointly handled by two of my former classmates in AIKOL. Engage them so that you don’t have to do it yourself. You can charge your client for your preference and convenience. Don’t go telling your clients that the court needs it. Then again, even the transcribing fees would not be 300-400% of increase in legal fees.

In fact, I’ll give you their numbers here. Call Mr. Kabir at 016 6332155 or Mr. Azmi 012-6193621 or email them at admin@scribe.com.my. Haha. I have their contacts as they gave me their brochure. Currently, I am helping them to advertise it at KL Courts. They have already received the nod of approval from the Chief Justice and the Chief Judge of Malaya.

Most of my friends in the private sectors are salaried lawyers. With the increase of legal fees and in an efficient system, the firms would be enjoying the perks and squeezing their salaried lawyers as they continue to take more cases. You have to fill up the void as you have managed to settle so many already right? Would you also ask the firms to revise the salaries of these salaried lawyers?

Actually, it is really none of my business if you want to raise your legal fees. You are the one doing the work and you know how much to charge. If you feel that you are undercharging, by all means, charge as you desire.

But don’t blame the efficiency of the Judiciary for it.

That is just soooo…

Ugh… can’t find the right words for it for now…

Blog adjourned.

My Father's Occupation

Once upon a time, in a beautiful village somewhere in Malaysia, a standard three class was having their English class.

Ms. Linda, the school’s English teacher gathered all her standard three pupils for a light public speaking session. Their topic for the day was “My Father’s Occupation”.

One by one, her students got up and shared with the class what their father do for a living.

“My father is a farmer. He plants many vegetables and fruits and sells them all at the market”

“My father is a fisherman. He goes to see to catch fish in his boat every day.”

“My father is hunter. He hunts for deer in the jungle everyday”.

As each student stood to give some description about their father, Ms. Linda noticed that Kasim was looking rather worried. She thought it was just Kasim fearing his turn and so she prepared herself to motivate Kasim to be confident.

When it came to Kasim’s turn, he stood and stared at everyone. He could not start describing about his father. Ms. Linda got hold of his hand and whispered gently, “It’s all right Kasim, there is nothing to be worried about. There is no harm in trying.”

Again, Kasim looked confused. After a while, Kasim gathered enough courage to speak.

“My father’s name is Azizi.”

He paused for a while. Ms. Linda nodded her head indicating Kasim to continue…

“My father is a "Banger". He "bangs" at the mosque five times a day when it is prayer time.”

...

Ms. Linda fainted.

Blog adjourned.

The Snake Catcher [By Jalaluddin Rumi]

There was once snake catcher who went to the mountains. Due to the winter cold and heavy snow, many big snakes lay motionless, as if they were dead.

The Snake Catcher picked up one of these seemingly lifeless snakes and took it to Baghdad Market, with the purpose of using it for a show. Showing it off, he made big claims as to how he had brilliantly captured the snake.

However, when the sun began to shine and its warmth cloaked the snake, the coldness in its body disappeared. The signs of life were soon apparent and when the snake began to move, the Snake Catcher and all those around, fled.

The writer portrays the snake resembling our Nafs (self). Purification (Tazkyia) and effort (Mushaqqat) makes our Nafs becomes frozen. It appears to be lifeless and dead. Just like the frozen snake. 

Without our Nafs tempting us to do so many stuffs and derail us from our main focus, we would feel as though we are a saint… a good Muslim.

*clap*clap*clap*

Commentators of this story say: 

"But give it a little heat from the fire of sin and the snake will come alive again." 

It will be dangerous and start to bite and spit its poison again.

Some also say that a little exposure to some past sins and the Nafs swings back to life. 

I must admit that I do agree and have felt that before.

I’m sure many of you do too.

Sometimes, after you make repetitive tawbah regarding a specific sin, you’d feel as though “Hmm… I’m guessing that Allah would’ve forgiven me by now Insha Allah!” 

That’s a normal thought considering that He is the Most Forgiving and Most Merciful.

But long after you stop making tawbah for that specific sin, and when you are suddenly exposed to the opportunity to commit that same specific sin again, your whole body starts to tremble because at that opportunity, you remember the excitement you felt when committing that specific sin.

At that time, you don’t remember the dreadful and remorse feeling you felt the last time you committed that sin and you don’t remember how you vowed to Him that you will never want to repeat it again.

But do remember… a little taste of sin revives the evil Nafs.

Do what you need to do to repel it.

In my humble bid to repel the revival of the evil Nafs, I would try (whenever I remember) to recite:

"Ya Muqallibal Quloob, Thabbit Qalbi ‘Ala Deenik"

“O Controller of the Hearts! Make firm my heart in Your Religion.”

Personally to me, I find that sometimes the above du’a helps me to feel spiritually inclined to repel that bad thought of committing a sin. Particularly when I’m feeling all goody goody Muslim…

Sometimes it doesn’t.

When it doesn’t, I’d go and find some other things to occupy my mind. Sleep is good.

Distraction is not always bad after all…LoL!

Another advise is to read Ihya Ulumuddin by Imam Ghazali. 8 Volumes altogether. Take it bit by bit. Don't overwhelm yourself. One step at a time. 

May God give us the strength to do so… :)

[P/s: If I am not mistaken, Jalaluddin Rumi wrote this story in form of a poetry. You can find it here.]

Blog adjourned.

Piety

Stop sinning, Big or Small,

That for you is piety,

And be like he, who walks on a land full of thorns,

Watching everything he sees,

Walking carefully.

Don’t belittle a small sin,

Surely mountains are made of specs of dust!

[An Arabic poem that I heard which was recited by Moez Massoud]

The Love Of Children

Last year, In My Chambers published a post (click here) about Maulud Dibai in its humble bid to celebrate Maulidur Rasul. Certainly one way we can make our hearts firm with Allah is to read the stories of the Prophets (see surah Hud, verse 120).

It is my humble intention to write something about the Prophet for us all to read and make our hearts firm Insha Allah.

Considering that I have my own little baby girl who is 1.5 years young, I plan to write a short post about how the Prophet (saw) is with children.

If you read the history of the Prophet (saw), you would see that he is very loving towards children. He is also not shy in showing them his love for them. In Sahih Bukhari, Abu Huraira reported that al-Aqra' b. Habis saw the Prophet (saw) kissing Hasan. He said: “I have ten children, but I have never kissed any one of them”. Whereupon Allah's Messenger (saw) said:

“He who shows no mercy to the people, Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, does not show mercy to him.”

It was said that the Prophet (saw) would kiss Ibrahim (his son) and inhaled his scent. He would also kiss Hassan and Hussein continuously.

It's true that children have got this scent that can really melt your heart. I still sniff little Alisha and breath in her sweet smell. Such smell seem to be much stronger when she was an infant and it seems to fade away as she grows bigger. 

*Help! Daddy's sniffing me again!!!*

Sometimes, when the Prophet (saw) was praying and doing sujud, his grandchildren Hassan and Hussein (ra) would play around him and climb on his back. Some narrations mentions that he would remain and not move for fear that they might fall and hurt themselves. Some narrations mentions that he would move them when he wanted to get up and when he made sujud again, they would climb on him again. This continued till he completed his prayers. Then he would take them both on made them sit on his knee without getting angry.

Let’s snap back into the present time.

When I was pray, I would make it a point to pray in front of my little Alisha. I think that it is a good way to introduce her to prayers. Everyday she would see the Bride and I pray on our prayer mat to the extent that when we take out the praying mat, she would raise her hands for du’a almost immediately. Somehow she also knows that when we pray, she gets something like a free auto roaming time to do anything to us and we won’t react. This simply excites her cheeky little heart. She would quickly drop her toys and came running to us and sit on us or climb our back etc.

Once I was doing ruku’ and she came and just sat in front of me and started to play with the prayer mat. At that moment, the hadith about how the Prophet (saw) would not move until his grandchildren moved occurred to me. So I remained in a ruku’ position. That was one of my longest ruku’. I was like, “Man! I’m living something like what the Prophet faced with his grandchildren! What a great feeling this is!”

So there I was in a ruku’ position, simply staring at my daughter being suddenly so curious with the design on my prayer mat. After quite a while, she decided to go and play with some other stuff. That allowed me to continue with my prayer just as how the Prophet (saw) would do when his grandchildren moved to a safer position.

Wow! What a feeling.

Then suddenly, I realized something…

I forgot which raka’at I was doing in my prayer!

LoL!

So, the moral of the story is to always lock in your head your raka’at before allowing yourself to be the statue for your child or grandchild to play around when you are praying.

To end this post, I would like to send my peace and blessings to my beloved Prophet (saw), his family and companions.

May Allah move our hearts to love him more than we love our own selves Insha Allah.

Blog adjourned.

The Soft Approach

A friend of mine mentioned about verse 125 in Surah An-Nahl in one of her email correspondence when YMP was discussing about da'wah.

“Invite (all) to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord knows best who have strayed from His Path and who receive guidance.” (Qur’an, 16:125)

I remembered learning about this verse back when I was in IIUM. I straight away went to get the translation of this verse and read the commentary given by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. After all, reading the commentary is a good way to understand about the verse. Abdullah Yusuf Ali had some very enlightening commentary regarding this verse. He said:

“In this wonderful passage are laid down principles of religious teaching, which are good
for all time. But where are the Teachers with such qualifications? We must invite all to the Way of God and expound His Universal Will; we must do it with wisdom and discretion, meeting people on their own ground and convincing them with illustrations from their own knowledge and experience, which may be very narrow or very wide. Our preaching must be, not dogmatic not self-regarding not offensive but gentle, considerate, and such as would attract their attention. Our manner and our arguments should not be acrimonious, but modeled on the most courteous and the most gracious example, so that the hearer may say to himself, "This man is not dealing merely with dialectics; he is not trying to get a rise out of me; he is sincerely expounding the faith that is in him and his motive is the love of man and the love of God."

Masha Allah, such beautiful nasihah to compliment the verse.

Whenever I read this verse, I would usually associate it with the story of Prophet Moses a.s. and Pharoah as mentioned in the Quran.

We all know about the Pharoah at the time of Prophet Moses a.s. A clear disbeliever who arrogantly thought he was god himself. When Allah instructed Moses to confront Pharoah. In surah Taha (20:43), Allah said:

"Go, both of you (referring to Moses and Aaron), to Pharoah, for he has indeed Transgressed all bounds."

Here is an instruction to go to Pharoah and to tell him that what he did is wrong beyond any reasonable doubt.

Interestingly, in the next verse, verse 44, Allah said:

 "But speak to him mildly; perchance he may take warning of fear (of God)".

Someone ulama mentioned that this verse about Prophet Moses a.s. and Pharoah is the best example that in doing da’wah, we must have a gentle approach. Some mention that the attitude we should have towards anyone would be the same particularly when we are doing da’wah be it to a drunkard, fornicator, gay, lesbian, gambler etc. I mean, if Allah wants us to speak mildly to an arrogant individual like Pharoah, who not only
disbelieved in Allah but associated himself as a partner to the Divine
Throne, I think we should adopt the same approach to others who merely
commits sins just like we all do.

Holier than thou attitude is a big No-No in the realm of da’wah.

So remember, we should always invite people to do good deeds but we must do so with wisdom and beautiful preaching.

Sometimes, the softest words can tame the wildest hearts…

(Sometimes, we just need to *dushum* and knock some sense into their heads. That is why Allah mentions wisdom first, then beautiful preaching. Hehe.)

Such modus operandi is how YMP works. Come and meet us in any of our events and get to know our YMP Council Members. Hence the reason why I personally love YMP. From the moment it was mooted by a few of us to our current organized structure and status, YMP has managed to touch so many hearts and invited them towards Allah. May Allah allow us to contribute even more in the future.
God knows best.

Since tomorrow is the Maulud of Prophet Muhammad SAW, I would like to take this opportunity to remind myself and to all of you to make plenty of salutation to the Prophet SAW.

Try to do it in Arabic. It sounds and means a lot better. :)

Blog adjourned.

Seeing Beyond The Normal Vision

Once there was a President of a small country who was walking up a hill to get an overall view of his subjects. He arrived safely at the peak of the hill and found a nice spot to sit and rest. As he was looking at his beautiful country and how his people were doing, he suddenly heard someone laughing behind him.

As he turned, he saw an old sage sitting on a rock laughing and pointing fingers to him. The leader got a bit agitated and restless. “He must be a mad old man. Why would an old sage laugh at his own President?” the President thought to himself.

As he continued to gaze at his subjects just under the hill, the old sage kept on laughing behind him. This time, that old man’s laughter grew louder and this started to annoy him.

So he turned and asked the old sage, “Hey old man, what are you laughing about?”

The following conversation took place:

Do you see those people, trees, animals and buildings down there? Those are your subjects’ right?

Indeed they are. I am their President and they are indeed my people.

Hah Hah Hah! 

That’s the funny part. That is what I see but know that it is not what you should be seeing O President.

What do you mean it is not the same?

What I see is something that is not attached to me or my life. But such is not the same with you O President.

Know that when I die and meet my Lord, I will be asked about my life and how I spent it.

Such is not the same for you O president. Instead, you will be asked about the life of your subjects and how it has been for them first before you will be further interrogated about your own life.

You see all the people, trees, animals and buildings? As much as they are your subject and responsibility here in this misleading world, know that you will be asked about each one of them in minute detail by the All Knower in the Day of Judgment.

Will you be able to stand tall before your Lord and answer about each one of them?

And when I asked you what you see, you gave an answer similar to what I saw…

Now isn’t that funny?

That is why I laugh at you O President.

Now tell me, how many leaders remember the responsibility that they have to deal with in the Hereafter?

Particularly so when millions of his subjects hates him and wants him to leave office?

Blog adjourned.