Kuala Lumpur: When the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) recommend names to be appointed as judges, does the prime minister of Malaysia accept all these recommendations?
During a forum by the Malaysian Bar here, two former JAC members today confirmed that “the answer is no’, including Former Malaysian Bar president Datuk Mah Weng Kwai.
“When it goes to the PM’s Office, everything is done so diplomatically, you will never get an answer from the PM’s Office to say so and so not to be appointed. What we will hear is, can we have other names please,” said Mah, who is also a retired Court of Appeal judge.
Emeritus Prof Datuk Shad Saleem Faruqi, holder of Universiti Malaya’s Tunku Abdul Rahman chair, replied: “Same here, the answer is no. In some cases, we rejected candidates and we found their name on the list.”
The duo were panelists in the first session titled “Safeguarding the Bench: Judicial Independence in Malaysia” at the Malaysian Bar’s two-hour-plus forum “Judicial Independence in Malaysia: Past Lessons, Current Challenges”.
They were replying to the forum session’s moderator and Malaysian Bar vice president Anand Raj, who had asked them for if “all recommendations of JAC were accepted by the executive” while both of them were in the JAC.
In Malaysia, the JAC vets through potential candidates to be appointed or promoted as judges by checking if they are qualified and fulfil the criteria under the law.
The JAC then votes on these candidates before forwarding the names as recommendations to the prime minister, before the prime minister gives advice to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong for the judges to be appointed.
But under the existing laws under the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) Act 2009, the prime minister can choose not to accept the names recommended by the JAC, and instead ask the JAC to give additional names or other candidates.
Datuk Seri M Ramachelvam, fellow panellist at the same forum session and co-chair of the Bar Council’s Civil Law and Law Reform Committee, said the JAC has brought about a “much better process” and “brought much improvement to the appointment of judges from what it was”.
But Ramachelvam said Malaysia should head towards the direction of making JAC’s recommendations “binding” on the prime minister, and said this would require amending the Federal Constitution to mandate the prime minister to follow the JAC’s recommendations.
