‘No one-size-fits-all formula for judgments’

PUTRAJAYA: When she was a young magistrate, newly-appointed Chief Justice Datuk Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat had written a single-page judgment that drew praises from a Federal Court judge.

The 59-year-old said the judgment was related to a case involving Menang Holdings which she presided over as a magistrate in Port Dickson.

“I can’t remember the other party but it was about summary judgment,” she said.

The then appellate judge, the late Tan Sri Azmi Kamaruddin, read the judgment and liked it very much. He wrote a letter to Tengku Maimun.

“His message to me was that it was a short and concise judgment and that judgment should be a sample or model for the other magistrates to emulate,” Tengku Maimun said.

The top judge shared the story during her first official press conference as the Chief Justice at her office in the Palace of Justice here yesterday.

“Tan Sri Azmi’s secretary told me that he had a lot of other cases to read about so when he read that short judgment, he was happy.

“He was happy because he didn’t have to waste time reading long-winded judgments for the purpose of appeal from lower courts,” she said.

But when the press asked her whether that would be her standard for length of judgment, she laughed and said that all judgments should be given what they are worth.

“There should not be a one-sizefits-all formula for how to write judgment and how lengthy it should be,” she said.

A reporter then asked her whether she would continue to write dissenting judgments, to which she replied: “Dissenting judgment is not a necessary criterion to getting promotion.

“It is more important to be independent and able to decide based on evidence and law.

“Integrity is the factor here plus competency and fairness and knowledge of the law.

“There is no need to always dissent. If a case calls for a unanimous judgment then so be it. A unanimous judgment is not a bad thing.”