Speech by Tun Mohamed Suffian Hashim, The Former Lord President, Supreme Court Of Malaysia (1974 – 1982), When He Launched May Day For Justice on 15 October 1989, At Holiday Inn On-The-Park, Kuala Lumpur

For some forty years I had spent my life in the law – appearing and arguing before our judges and finally for seven years as Lord President, a post I had never thought of attaining even in my wildest 
dreams when I first entered the public service. Public confidence in an independent judiciary cannot be built up in a day and my predecessors had for generations nurtured and build up a great reputation not only in South East Asia but throughout the Commonwealth.

Until recently, judicial appointment was regarded as a great honour and I took great care to maintain and enhance the reputation of our judiciary as Guardians of the Constitution, Upholders of the Rule of Law, Protectors of the Poor and Oppressed against Tyranny and Criminals. I valued its reputation for integrity, ability and courage to decide disputes impartially, justly and without fear.

To some extent I feel personally responsible for Tun Salleh Abas’s misfortune, for it was I who brought him into the Courts from the Attorney-General’s Chambers because of his superior 
qualifications, great ability as a jurist, his seniority in the service and above all, his outstanding moral character. None of these qualities can be taken away by any Tribunal, be it ever so high.

What happened to Tun Salleh and our Supreme Court Judges has shown that what took generations to build up can be destroyed in one day and it will take many years to rebuild.

Our media does not dare to publish the whole truth and expose abuse of power and wickedness, though improprieties in high places do not pass unnoticed by many unhappy practitioners. Consequently the public has only been fed the untruthful and distorted official version of 
unprecedented episode that brings shame not only to the perpetrators of the crime which left our judiciary in a shambles, but also shame to the whole country.

We watched helpless as a provision written into the Constitution by Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Dr. Ismail, Tun Tan Siew Sin, Tun Sambanthan and others to secure the independence of the judiciary, was being diabolically used to wreck it.

This full scale book by Tun Salleh and Mr. K. Das (unlike the witnesses before the Tribunal who were made to swear to tell the truth nothing but the truth) for the first time reveals the whole truth and the real reasons why the high dignitaries directly involved wanted Tun Salleh out of the way costs and unfair devices and means used to achieve their purpose.

I was in Geneva when I first heard BBC World Service of Tun Salleh’s suspension and you can imagine how flabbergasted I was. I never thought that what happened in Idi Amin’s Uganda could happen in Malaysia. And when foreign friends in Europe, America and elsewhere questioned me about it, for the first time in my life I was ashamed being a Malaysian.

And when later I heard of the identities of the Malaysian members of the Tribunal – none were Salleh’s peers or betters – I knew at once that Tun Salleh’s fate was sealed, no matter how just his cause or what he said or did in defence. And so it was. With dazzlind speed, he was out in three months in contrast to a humble clerk who could not be fired in less than three years.

We, who see today’s ominous campaign in the controlled media against the Bar, will remember the similar press campaign that preceded the blows that destroyed the independence of the judiciary.

May Allah protect our Judiciary and the Bar, shower His blessings on all of us and punish and destroy the wicked.