JAC, Bar Council to check judge’s claim of lawyer’s improper contact

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 ― The Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) and the Bar Council said they will look into a judge’s claim of a lawyer’s informal attempts to contact him during a corruption case, which subsequently led to his recusal from the matter.

JAC secretary Datuk Hamidah Khalid said the commission will discuss the matter involving Shah Alam High Court judge Datuk Abdul Alim Abdullah and lawyer Datuk Salehuddin Saidin, who is slated to be elevated to the post of judicial commissioner.

“We will discuss,” Hamidah told Malay Mail Online.

When contacted, Bar Council chairman Christopher Leong similarly said: “We’ll look into it”.

Yesterday, Malay Mail Online reported Abdul Alim as writing in his August 15 recusal ruling that Salehuddin had inappropriately attempted to make contact with him during the corruption appeal he was presiding over at the time, prompting him to remove himself from the case.

Abdul Alim said in his judgment that Salehuddin had sent him a text message on June 26, requesting for the appeal to be postponed because he did not have time to prepare his written submissions, claiming that the case was complex and that much of the testimony was in document form.

After the report, Salehuddin said in response that he would seek to set aside Abdul Alim’s ruling or to apply to expunge certain words damaging to him, besides looking at the Malay Mail Online report that he claimed contained insinuations outside the ruling.

In his recusal judgment, Abdul Alim said that he felt nervous when Salehuddin attempted to meet him in chambers to discuss the appeal after completing the judicial commissioners’ induction course.

At the time, Salehuddin was representing former Gerakan Teratai assemblyman Yap Soo Sun who was appealing against a Shah Alam Sessions Court 2011 decision that sentenced Yap to two years’ jail and imposed a RM350,000 fine after convicting him of seven counts of submitting claims totalling RM70,000 over non-existent events.

Abdul Alim had advised Salehuddin that it was improper for him to handle the case given his impending appointment as a judicial commissioner.

The judge also alleged that Salehuddin had asked him which of the latter’s colleagues he would be “comfortable” with to take over the case.

According to Abdul Alim, Salehuddin told him that he was expected to be appointed judicial commissioner by the end of the year as he has completed the judicial commissioners’ induction course.