Judiciary reforms paid off, says chief justice
KUALA LUMPUR: The judiciary has reduced the number of backlog cases since certain reforms were introduced eight years ago.
Chief Justice Tun Md Raus Sharif said the judicial reforms were initiated by former chief justice Tun Zaki Tun Azmi when he was first appointed as the chief justice in 2008.
He said the reforms had had a great impact in transforming the Malaysian judiciary to what it was today.
“At his elevation ceremony as the chief justice, Tun Zaki declared an all-out war against delays in settlement of cases and resolved to speed up the justice delivery system,” said Raus during the Malaysian Press Insititute’s luncheon talk here yesterday.
“The initial reform programme was aimed at finding the best solution to dispose of old cases and, at the same time, expedite the hearing of new cases.
“Within three months, there were signs of success and realising this, Zaki decided to reform the programme throughout the Peninsular (Malaysia),” said Raus.
Among the reforms introduced were Key Performance Indicators for judges (number of cases a judge must hear in a day).
To address backlog of cases, fast-tracking of cases was introduced, which was divided into Track A (Affidavit-based and Interlocutory matters), Track T (Trial Cases), pursuing a strict no-postponement policy (only postpone when there is a death or near-death situation), computerisation of courtrooms and establishing specialist courts, in particular the New Commercial Court (NCC).
“When the NCC was established, we had judges clearing old and new cases concurrently.
“For new cases in the NCC, we set a timeline of disposal within nine months of registration. To be able to do that, the cases were subjected to vigorous case management. Performance of the judges was regularly monitored.
“The results were astonishing. Most cases, about 95 to 98 per cent of the NCC cases, were disposed of within nine months. Cases which exceeded the nine months were disposed of in a year.”
As of Sept 30, Raus said, there were 818 cases pending in the Commercial Court, of which 711 were cases from this year, 72 from last year and 35 cases were pre-2016 cases.
“I was informed by the managing judge of the commercial division that 96 per cent of the cases are being disposed of within the timeline of nine months.
“This is a milestone in the history of our judiciary and an achievement to be proud of.
“Not even Singapore cases can match our performance in disposing of commercial cases. Their timeline is 18 months.”
Raus said three years from the time the Malaysian judiciary started its reforms, it succeeded in clearing a substantial number of old cases and due to this, the courts’ efforts were well documented, which earned the system accolades in the World Bank reports in 2011.
The Malaysian judicial system was also recommended by the World Bank for adoption by judiciaries facing similar problems and among countries which visited and adopted the practice were Sri Lanka, Thailand, Brunei, Nepal, Sweden and Taiwan.