AG: All court cases to go on as usual despite RCI

All court cases will proceed as usual amid the government’s move to form a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into alleged judicial misconduct.

Attorney General Tommy Thomas said all cases at all levels of the superior and subordinate courts would continue to be heard and determined by them.

“Any request of any postponement of any case must be made by a party to the relevant court in the ordinary way.

“It would be a normal exercise of judicial function for a judge to decide whether any postponement should be refused or granted,” he said in a statement to clarify the position of the RCI and its effect on all proceedings pending at the courts.

“The establishment of the RCI does not mean that an automatic or blanket postponement of all cases will follow.”

He gave the examples of past scrutiny into the judiciary, which included two tribunals that were set up to enquire into allegations of judicial misconduct against six then Supreme Court judges in 1988.

In 2007, an RCI into the V.K. Lingam video clip was established to investigate an allega-

The establishment of the RCI does not mean that an automatic or blanket postponement of all cases will follow.

Tommy Thomas

tion of intervention in the judicial appointment process by some Malaysian judges.

In all these precedents, the ordinary business in all the courts proceeded as usual and no adjournment was entertained by the courts.

To suggest that court proceedings and the administration of justice should be put on hold pending the completion of the RCI’s enquiry was without factual or legal basis, he added.

The RCI, he said, must be permitted to discharge its important duties in a calm and measured way.