TUN ABDUL HAMID MOHAMAD
Former Chief Justice of Malaysia
RESPONSE TO ALL MY CRITICS
RESPONSE TO ALL MY CRITICS
By
Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad
On 2 July 2014 Malaysiakini published 16 selected comments from its subscribers. The title reads “Yousay” followed by “Shocking that Abdul Hamid was chief justice”. Just as the title indicates, all of them condemned me harshly and questioned how a “bigot” like me could have been a judge and chief justice.
To save space, I merely quote parts of what they say:
“closet bigot”
“a fraud”
“We can only lament such a defective mind could have led the judiciary.”
“cock-eyed judges like Abdul Hamid.”
“Abdul Hamid is a traitor to the constitution and the rule of law”
“the man is a disgrace to the bench and the law.”
“……bigots like Abdul Hamid around spouting their ridiculous ideas,”
The following day, on 3 July 2014, Malaysiakini again published a selection of 17 comments by its subscribers under the title “Goodness gracious, and he was chief justice?” The comments are similar. They were attacks against me personally.
Realising my mistake, on 8 July 2014, I issued a correction and apologized for the mistake. The correction is only relating to the confusion. The content remains the same.
However, the next day, 9 July 2019, Hornbill Unleash, perhaps relying on an earlier report by the “Malaysian Insider” reported under the title “Ex-chief justice was not truthful, he was not offered a place on unity council, says source”:
“Former Chief Justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad (pic) was not truthful when he said he turned down an offer to join the National Unity Consultative Council for fear of being branded a “traitor” to the Malays and Islam, said a source who is familiar with the issue.
“The fact is, Abdul Hamid was never offered a position on the NUCC panel,” the source told The Malaysian Insider.
“He was instead offered the chairmanship of the Committee to Promote Understanding and Harmony Among Religious Adherents (JKMPKA) under the Department of National Unity and Integration.”
“The source” must have been one of the officers of the department. What is the motive for him to leak the information to Malaysian Insider to report it if not to discredit me as, by then, the days of NUCC were already numbered due to our opposition?
The truth is that I enquired whether the ministry could provide a car to fetch me from my house for the meeting and send me back after the meeting because, due to my health condition, I was unable to drive anymore and I did not have a driver! I did not ask for a car and a driver. See how it was spun.
Yes, I did enquire about meeting allowance not just for me but for all members of the committee. The minister and the department had full time and fully paid officers to do the work of the department. Now they want us to do the job for them. They should not expect us to do it for free for them and, at the end of the day, they get the name. I did mention the amount the Ministry of Finance and Bank Negara paid me to chair their committees for their information. Why leaked it to be used to discredit me?
That article was a 1077-word article. I dealt with a number of issues, giving my arguments to support my view. (To get a clearer picture on the issue, I urge readers to read the said article and subsequent articles and speeches on the issue, on my websites.) No one wrote a similar article giving counter arguments to support his view. Instead, all of them criticised me with the kind of language readers have just read, picking on my mistake in typing the abbreviation “MKPN” instead of “JKMPKA” and trying to make me appear to be greedy for money.
It shows that none of them had read my article, in Malay. I am very sure they merely relied on a news article in English written by someone who normally follows what I write and published by one of the internet media that publishes similar news articles about me.
Why were they suddenly so angry with me? The truth is, by that time, they could already feel the strength of our opposition and the influence of my articles and speeches. I must be discredited and silenced at all costs. This is the best opportunity for them to do it.
My speech at the breaking of fasting organized by Perkasa on 21 July 2014 worsened the criticism against me. The title was “Mempertahankan Perlembagaan Sebagai Asas Perpaduan Negara.”
I began my speech as follows (translation):
“The Malay Peninsula was colonised from the Malays. Those who opposed it, be it Dato Bahaman, Dato’ Sagor, Dato Maharaja Lela, Dol Said or Tok Janggut, were Malays. It was the Malays who opposed the Malayan Union. Those who sacrificed their lives to fight the communist terrorists during the emergency were Malays. Those who fought for independence were Malays. The non-Malays joined the movement to fight for independence when they saw that it would be a reality, to safeguard their interests. Even at that time their goals were different.
“Logically, the Malay Peninsula which was colonised from the Malays, should be returned to the Malays. But no, the Malays were required to share the power that the British colonisers were handing over. Even at that time, the Malays were required to sacrifice their rights “for the sake of unity”. The Malays agreed, so much so that in the 1955 General Election, in order to give more representation to non-Malays, the Malay-majority areas were given to non-Malay candidates to contest. This situation continued in order to ensure the victory of non-Malay party leaders, up to the 12th General Election when UMNO’s own victory in the Malay-majority constituencies, was uncertain.”
Then, I quoted Professor Shad Saleem Farouqi’s book “Document of Destiny: The Constitution of the Federation of Malaysia” where he said:
“As a result of the “social contract” between the various races, millions of migrants to British Malaya were bestowed with citizenship by the Merdeka Constitution. It is believed that the number of citizens in Malaya doubled at the stroke of midnight on August 31, 1957 due to the constitutional grant.”
Then, I said:
“Generally, the non-Muslims in Malaysia are unhappy with the position of Islam as the religion of the Federation. They want all religions to be given the same position. According to the former Mufti of Penang, in Penang, at an event in which a building was officially opened by the Deputy Chief Minister, prayers were read by a Christian priest, a Hindu priest the Imam of the State Mosque. I am surprised why the imam of the state mosque also participated.”
I also said that according to the former Mufti it was getting more difficult for the State Islamic Religious Council to get funds from the state as non-Muslim religious organisations also wanted the same.
On 23 July 2014, Malaysia Today reported that Lim Guan Eng, the Chief Minister of Penang, attacked me and called me “a racist, an extremist and a liar”.
In the first place, did he read the whole of my speech before commenting? Now, let us look at his outburst rationally. I had stated a fact based on what was told to me by a person in authority, which fact I believed to be true. If that fact turned out to be wrong, I am not lying. I made a mistake of fact. All that Lim Guan Eng needs to do was to say that what I said was wrong and provide the correct fact. I would have accepted his statement and apologise the same way as I had done in respect of Tun Dr. Mahathir four years later. It is a pity that a Chief Minister does not know the difference between lying and making a mistake of facts.
Calling me “racist” and “extremist” does not prove whether what I said was right or wrong. It only shows his level of argument.
Since that was the first and the last time I heard from him, in spite of the fact that, on two occasions, when he was a Minister of Finance, I questioned his use of Mandarin only, in official matters, I will say no more.
The word “racist” uttered by Lim Guan Eng against me seemed to have awoken former Federal Court Judge Dato’ Sri Gopal Sri Ram from his 30-year sleep.
On the following day, 24 July 2014, the Malaysian Insider reported “Hamid revealed racial prejudice in a High Court judgment, says retired judge”. The report continued:
“Retired Federal Court judge Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram said he had sat on a Court of Appeal bench in 1996 which came across Hamid’s decision in a civil case that belied his prejudice.
In that case, a bank had sued two business partners, a Malay and an Indian, who had stood guarantors for a loan. Both the defendants relied on the defence that their signatures were forged by a third party.
Sri Ram (pic) told The Malaysian Insider that Hamid, who had wrriten the judgment in Bahasa Malaysia, accepted the claim by the Malay defendant because “as a Muslim he would not tell lies”.
“He, however, did not accept the allegation of the Indian. The bank and the Indian appealed to the Court of Appeal.”
I do not remember that case as it happened, if at all, almost thirty years earlier, assuming the date given by him is correct. Show me the judgment and what I really said, in Malay. Only then I’ll be able to reply. In the meantime, on the assumption that what he said is true, I will only say the following:
First, do not give the impression that I wrote the judgment in Malay because I was “racist” and I had something to hide. At that time, there was a directive from the Chief Justice that judges should write their judgments in Malay and for those who were not well versed in Malay, at least one a month. I do not know whether Gopal Sri Ram ever complied with that directive.
Secondly, did he ever read and understand a judgment written in Malay?
Thirdly, I was a judge for 18 years, written hundreds of judgments and decided thousands of cases, but he could only mention one solitary case, vaguely, 30 years later, to join the chorus that I am “racist”. Did he not come across any other? Show me just one formal complaint by lawyers or the Bar Council against me, regarding anything, during all those years that I was a Judge.
Fourthly, he was then a member of the Court of Appeal panel that heard the appeal. Why didn’t the Court of Appeal (or he himself) write a judgment pointing out that I was wrong to give that kind of reason for accepting an affidavit evidence. It is the duty of the Court of Appeal to correct the mistakes of the High Court. I, a junior Judge then, would have learned my mistake, three decades earlier. Other Judges would benefit from it too. Or, why didn’t he or any other member of the Court of Appeal panel call me and tell me that I was wrong. I would have thanked them for it.
Gopal Sri Ram himself used to go to Penang for Court of Appeal sitting. In fact, the judges used my chamber and my court room when they were there. Why didn’t he tell me the mistake I made? Instead, he told me not to write my judgments in Malay “as people won’t read them”.
Furthermore, when I was transferred to Kuala Lumpur in 1999, the then Chief Justice, Tun Eusoff Chin told me that Gopal Sri Ram complained that I was rude to him (to the Chief Justice!) during their sitting in Penang because I sat cross legged in front of the Chief Justice! Considering all these, what is his motive in bringing up the issue almost three decades later? Is it to teach a junior judge or to smear his name after he had retired for reasons best known to him? Is it done in good faith?
On 30 July 2014, Hornbill Unleash published “Muslim Cannot Tell Lies” written by Ravinder Singh. He clearly picked up from what Gopal Sri Ram said six days earlier and “unleashed” on me. But, what is interesting is that he devoted the second half of the article to criticise Tun Dr. Mahathir for not telling the truth. He too could be a lawyer as he talked about hearsay evidence, albeit out of context but does not seem to know the word “relevance”. Note that at time Pakatan Harapan had not been established yet.
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