PUTRAJAYA, Dec 5 — Chief Justice Datuk Seri Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh today acknowledged that the failure by some judges to write court judgments is a breach of their code of ethics, but said the judiciary would explore other methods first instead of opting for disciplinary action.

Wan Ahmad Farid was asked by the media about the current backlog of 900 to 1,000 judgments that some judges and judicial commissioners at the High Court in Peninsular Malaysia had yet to write despite the judiciary’s practice direction requiring them to write within eight weeks after an appeal is filed.

Asked whether disciplinary action would be taken on them as a last resort, Wan Ahmad Farid said: “As to the backlog of judgments, you are right when you say that the failure to write judgments amounts to a breach of etiquette rules, so these are the possibilities that we are going to explore.”

At the same time, he noted that judges have a lot of work as he personally also works until late night to write judgments, noting that these factors should also be taken into account when trying to resolve the backlog.

“But there are methods of reducing the backlog of cases, we are doing it. We are not going to do using the ‘stick’ first,” he told the media in a group interview at the Palace of Justice here.

He said certain judges who have such backlogs have been observed to write longer judgments such as over 100 pages, which he said is unnecessary.

He said the judiciary will get judges to attend judgment writing courses to enable them to learn how to write court decisions more efficiently and more precisely.

This would also help save judges at the appeal stage from having to spend time reading long judgments, he said.

Wan Ahmad Farid said there is also a need to consider the wellbeing of judges, such as those whose performance may be affected due to their trauma from looking at evidence in criminal trials.

“And these are the things we have to consider, we are not going to pass judgment on them,” he said, adding that the judiciary will approach judges to understand their challenges and help them in reducing the backlog in written judgments.

Under the Judges’ Code of Ethics 2009, Paragraph 7(7) states that “a judge shall endeavour to diligently and efficiently hear and complete the cases in his court and promptly write his judgments”.

There have been cases in the past where the hearing of appeals have been delayed repeatedly, as the High Court judgments had not been written yet despite the decision having been delivered long ago.

When asked the idea of giving performance bonuses to judges who excel in their work and write their judgments on time, Wan Ahmad Farid said this was a “good idea” and it could encourage judges to write better quality judgments.

He noted that this is practised in Singapore where the chief justice is given allocations to decide on such bonuses, but said Malaysia’s situation involving judges’ salaries is different from Singapore and cannot be compared “apple to apple”.

But he was open to this idea: “I will explore that possibility, because there must be some encouragement to the judges who perform, since the positions at the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court are limited. So at least we can recognise them by giving this kind of encouragement.”

Wan Ahmad Farid was asked about the idea of appointing lawyers based on subject matter expertise to be judicial commissioners for a short period with the aim of helping to clear backlog of court cases, and not with the aim of eventually being confirmed as High Court judges and to return to becoming a lawyer in the future.

He said this is a “good idea to explore”, as there have been highly specialised lawyers in family law and commercial law previously who carried out such roles previously as judicial commissioners.

“They are not interested in being a full-time judge at a latter stage. They are interested in serving the country for two years and then come back to practise. It’s a good idea, although we know that the salary is not that lucrative as a judicial commissioner, but we consider it as a national service,” he said.