Eusoff lacked leadership, says Dzaiddin

Posted on January 30, 2008. Filed under: [s]lawyer video clip |

Former Chief Justice Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah hit out at his former boss Tun Eusoff Chin, saying that he lacked direction and leadership when he was top judge.
He said that when he served under Eusoff as Federal Court judge in the 1990s, the latter also kept lying to him.

“There was a lack of direction in the way we performed our work, settled cases and fixed cases (for hearing),” he told the Royal Commission of Inquiry.
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He said he had such ill feelings for Eusoff because the latter kept lying. His remarks drew applause from those in the public gallery.
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He said he had proposed that the late Tan Sri Abdul Malek Ahmad be made the Chief Judge of Malaya (CJM) before Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim but the proposal was rejected by the then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“I am very sure I recommended Tan Sri Malek first because he was then the most senior Federal Court judge, compatible and most importantly, a judge of integrity,” he said.
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Asked if the act of lobbying for the position of the President of the Court of Appeal amounted to “tarnishing the good name of the judiciary”, Dzaiddin said that it was, adding that such misconduct ran foul of the judges’ Code of Ethics 1994.
On the Tan Sri title conferred to Ahmad Fairuz just one year after the latter was made the CJM, Dzaiddin said Ahmad Fairuz admitted to him that it was based on the recommendation of then Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor.
“I was surprised because it was improper. It should be recommended by the head of department, in this case, the Chief Justice of the Federal Court,” said Dzaiddin.
He also said he condemned judges who went out with lawyers, especially when the lawyers had cases before the judges.