KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 1 ― The government will study the “interesting” proposal to relieve the Attorney-General of his position of overseeing the judges from the Sessions Court and Magistrate’s Court, de facto law minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said said today.
Azalina said the proposal mentioned by Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria last Saturday “makes some sense”.
“I think basically what they want is the prosecutors are just prosecutors and the judges are just the judiciary, because High Court judges are all appointed by the Commission. I think basically that’s how the CJ is looking at it.
“It’s quite interesting but it must be studied further,” she said.
Azalina said the proposal could possibly be discussed at the Cabinet level, but said she will have to first study the proposal papers drafted by the Chief Registrar.
“I already met the court registrar this morning, she will give me the proposal that they have already written to the Public Services, so we will just have to study it.
“No matter what, we will maybe discuss it in Cabinet as a follow-through. I don’t know, I have not looked at the papers yet,” she said.
Yesterday, Azalina said in a statement that the government welcomes further explanation from the Chief Justice on the justification for his proposal for the separation of powers between the judicial services and legal services.
Besides looking forward to the top judge’s views on how such a move would benefit the country’s judicial system, Azalina said the government will also take into account the views of others.
Last Saturday, Arifin proposed that the Chief Registrar take over the AG’s role in heading the judicial services division of the Sessions and Magistrate’s Court, with the AG to only head the legal services division of these two courts.
This move would avoid negative perception of the independence of judges, Arifin had said.
He said the Chief Registrar has already drafted a paper for the proposed change which he said should be finalised by year end.
