LIEW: ACTION TO BE TAKEN AFTER PROBE
Minister says this in reference to judicial meddling claims by senior judges
MINISTER in the Prime Minister’s Deparment Datuk Liew Vui Keong said action on allegations of judicial interference in two high-profile cases under the previous administration will be taken once the internal investigations by the chief justice’s office are complete.
Liew, who is in charge of matters on law, yesterday said this when referring to the judicial meddling claims by senior judges in the unilateral conversion of M. Indira Gandhi’s children and the late parliamentarian Karpal Singh’s sedition trial.
On Friday, Chief Justice Tan Sri Richard Malanjum was reported as saying that he had taken note of the allegations and that internal probes were being conducted following media statements on the cases.
Court of Appeal judge Datuk Dr Hamid Sultan Abu Backer had, earlier last month, said he had been reprimanded by a top judge for writing a dissenting judgment two years ago in the case of the unilateral conversion of Indira Gandhi’s children.
Hamid had, among others, written that the conversion of the children was illegal as the permission of the mother had not been obtained.
He alleged that as a result, he was not assigned to hear cases involving public interest and those related to the Federal Constitution.
The second alleged incident came to light after Sangeet Kaur Deo, the daughter of Karpal Singh, filed a report following a Facebook posting by lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla claiming that a senior judge interfered with the outcome of the late DAP stalwart’s sedition appeal in 2016.