Thread by @morasaki12

#Flashback The VK Lingam RCI - is actually blow our mind.

As a result of the VK Lingam RCI, a system to prevent forum shopping of judges (meaning human intervention to select which judge to hear which case) was implemented.

Each judge was pre-assigned to a criminal court - for example, judge ABC to criminal court 1, judge DEF to criminal court 2 and so on.

A Electronic filing system would then randomly appoint cases to a specific criminal court.

In the SRC case, Judge Sofian was already pre-assigned to criminal court 3.

Najib's SRC case was randomly selected by the system to be heard in Criminal Court 3 - which means Judge Sofian being the judge in charge there will hear Najib's case.

HOWEVER, it seems there is a loophole in the Electronic Filing System as it allows human intervention to select judges to hear which case.

Instead of changing which criminal court will hear what case, you can simply change the judge already pre-assigned to . . . .

. . . that particular criminal court.

This is exactly what happened on 24th July 2018 when the new Chief Judge of Malaya Zaharah binti Ibrahim ordered the "limited rotation" of judges where Judge Sofian was transferred out of Criminal Court 3 and replaced by Judge Nazlan . . . .

. . . who was transferred in from Civil court 1 to take over the highest profile criminal case in Malaysia despite him having zero criminal court experience.

The focus now shifts to Zaharah binti Ibrahim who was only sworn in as Chief Judge of Malaya on 17th July 2018 - . . . .

. . . meaning one of her first acts was to replace Judge Sofian with Judge Nazlan exactly a week later.

However, this limited rotation of judges involving just 3 judges was really all about replacing Judge Sofian with Judge Nazlan . . . .

. . . to the delight of Tommy as what he wrote in his book.

Read here: facebook.com/lim.siansee/po…

But before she could be appointed as Chief Judge of Malaya, the positions of Chief Justice and President of the Court of Appeal must be vacated first.

This was accomplished when Tun Daim and Tun Mahathir forced the then CJ Tun Raus and the then President of Court of Appeal Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin to resign.

So, there are now vacancies for Chief Justice and President of Court of Appeal.

Remember that under the Judicial Appointments Commission Act 2009 (Act 695) gazetted as law on February 8, 2009, the selection of judges must be done by the Judicial Appointment Commission (JAC)

So on 13th June 2018, the JAC put up the following names for appointment to replace the two vacant positions.
1. Tan Sri Dato' Sri Azahar bin Mohamed as the Chief Justice.
2. Tan Sri Rohana binti Yusuf as the President of the Court of Appeal

Notice that there was no recommendation for the post of Chief Judge of Malaya as the post was not vacant then as Ahmad bin Haji Maarop was just appointed to that post barely a year ago in April 2017.

But on 18th June 2018, Mahathir wrote back that he had decided on . . . .

. . . the following appointments instead:
1. Richard Malanjum as Chief Justice
2. Ahmad bin Haji Maarop as the President of the Court of Appeal
3. Zaharah binti Ibrahim as the Chief Judge of High Court of Malaya

Mahathir completely broke the law by completely changing . . . .

. . . all the candidates recommended by the JAC in 2018!

Therefore, Ahmad bin Haji Maarop was then promoted to President of the Court of Appeal hence vacating the post of Chief Judge of High Court of Malaya

And Zaharah binti Ibrahim was then appointed by Mahathir to that post although she was never recommended by the JAC and was sworn in on 17th July 2018 despite being due for mandatory retirement in about 10 months.

In May 2019, Zaharah retired.

She was then appointed by Guan Eng as Chairperson of Prasarana Malaysia - a post she held for 5 months only until she was replaced after the fall of the PH government.

Anyway, two questions that many would like to ask Zaharah are :-

1. Why did you replace Judge Sofian with Judge Nazlan as one of your first major decision after being appointed as Chief Judge of Malaya? On what basis was this decision made?

2. Was this your own decision or were you asked by any other persons including the new PM or new CJ then?