Counsel, law book author hopes for permanent panel of Court of Appeal for Sabah, Sarawak
KUCHING: It is hoped that a permanent panel of Court of Appeal would be allocated to Sabah and Sarawak in the near future, said counsel and law book author Tan Kee Heng.
Speaking at the official launch of his book, ‘Civil and Criminal Appeals in Malaysia (Fourth Edition)’ yesterday, Tan pointed out that for the past 30 years since the establishment of the Court of Appeal, only a subregistry had been set up in Kuching and Kota Kinabalu since 2007, where its main function was to simplify the filing and service of documents.
“Malaysia has been formed for more than 60 years, may I ask all my learned friends here, in your learned view, are these two Borneo states entitled to have at least a permanent panel of the Court of Appeal attached with few judges of Borneo experience?
“It would help to expedite the hearing of the appeals originated from here and also on the saving of costs for the parties involved from these two states.”
Tan said as at January 2023, the Court of Appeal was facing 6,300 pending appeals primarily from Peninsular Malaysia, adversely impacting the timely disposition of appeals from Sabah and Sarawak due to the absence of a dedicated permanent panel for East Malaysia.
“Certainly, these appeals from these two Borneo states would be disposed of at a faster pace, possibly within 12 to 18 months, if there is a permanent panel stationed here as we are rightly entitled to or at least let us to have a specific East Malaysia panel.
“Don’t always tell us that the population in East Malaysia only represents about 20 per cent of the total population in Malaysia; must always bear in mind, geographically, Sarawak itself is bigger than the whole of Malaya.”
Commenting further, he said as of now, for the first time in the Malaysian legal history, three Sarawakians were appointed to the Federal Court — Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Datuk Amar Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Abdul Rahman Sebli, and Federal Court Judge Justice Dato Rhodzariah Bujang — apart from having Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusoff as the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia and Datuk Abdul Razak Tready in the Judicial Appointment Commission.
“Therefore, I believe it is not impossible if all the stakeholders could work together for a permanent panel of the Court of Appeal to be based in East Malaysia since we are equal partners in the formation of Malaysia.”
On another matter, Tan said in the pursuit of advancing legal development and ensuring justice administration in our country, the publication of law books remained crucial, even in the face of financial hurdles and ongoing threats posed by pirated copies.
“For instance, this book was just published at the end of last year, but the pirated copies were already available in January this year (with black-coloured cover) sold at only RM220 per copy.
“Just two days ago when I checked again through Google, the remark was ‘out of stock’.”