“At this table next to mine were two lawyers who looked like they were 10 years old at the Bar. One of them was saying, ‘Who is Christopher Leong talking about?’ The other guy said, ‘It’s a judge lah, VC George.’ In the context that all the other recipients, barring Mahadev Shankar who is here and very much alive, were all very much dead before they got the award, this guy said, ‘Good heavens! Is VC George dead?’”
This is vintage George. Tan Sri Vadaketh Chacko George, who will be 87 on Dec 13, was replying to the citation from the Malaysian Bar’s 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Bar Council instituted the award in 2011 to recognise members who have demonstrated particular dedication and exemplary lifetime service, and made invaluable and outstanding contributions to the Bar.
The previous recipients were Raja Aziz Addruse (posthumously) in 2012, Datuk Dr Sir Peter Mooney in 2013 (who passed away in 2015), Datuk Mahadev Shankar in 2014, Dr Radhakrishna Ramani (posthumously) in 2015, and Karpal Singh (posthumously) in 2016.
If George’s father’s wish had come to be, Malaysia would have lost a legal luminary to the medical profession or the world of dentistry at least. George was admitted into the Dental Faculty University of Malaya in Singapore in 1951. Within months he knew that teeth were not his calling and he took the SS Corfu to London to read law. Malaysians have his Latin and Mathematics teacher V.K Arumugam to thank because he encouraged George to read law.
Many people have a mission to change the world. Called to the English Bar in 1957, George takes life in his stride and changes things because it is the right time, the right thing or plain common sense.
Right time
Some countries still dither over whether to limit the term of their presidents/prime ministers. George - who served on the Bar Council from 1965 to 1980 - settled the matter the last century.
In reading George’s citation, Leong says there were no term limits for the Bar president when George and Chan Hua Eng were young leaders.
There was a president who had served continuously for seven years. So when Chan and George were elected president in 1973-1974 and 1974-1976, respectively, they started the convention of president for a maximum of two terms even before this was enshrined in the Legal Profession Act 1976, adds Leong, who was president from 2013-2015.
A Jan 1, 1981 picture of (from left) then Lord President the late Sultan Azlan Shah, former Lord President Tun Mohamed Suffian Hashim, VC George and Siti Norma Yaakob. – Photo courtesy of VC George
Right thing
Take the provision in the LPA that gets the goat of many in Government - the one where lawyers say they are bound to:
> UPHOLD the course of justice without regard for their own interests, uninfluenced by fear or favour; and
> PROTECT and assist the public in all matters touching on or ancillary/incidental to the law.
George was admitted to the Bar here under the 1947 Advocates and Solicitors’ Ordinance. When he was president, as chair of the LPA Drafting Committee, they set down in law what was always “in principle and practice the fundamental role and ethos of an independent Bar”, adds Leong.
Then there is George’s interpretation of locus standi in Lim Kit Siang v United Engineers (M) Bhd in 1988 - on the right to bring a case. The Supreme Court reversed it in a 3-2 decision, practically killing public interest litigation. However, the current Federal Court re-visited UEM in 2014 and followed the minority decision - a person need only show he or she has genuine interest and that such interest was adversely affected.
Common sense
Elevated to the High Court on Jan 1, 1981, George would sit at his clerk’s table on Monday mornings, call up the cases, question counsel and determine the schedule for the cases.
Much later, Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah as Chief Justice (2000-2003) introduced case management. But it only became standard practice under Tun Zaki Azmi’s leadership (2008-2011).
In 1994, George was elevated to the newly established Court of Appeal where he stayed until his retirement in 1995. He returned to the Bar, joined law firm Skrine as a consultant and got busy conducting arbitrations here and overseas.
On the night of his award, he was surrounded by most of his family - wife Puan Sri Dr Rebecca George, son Chacko and daughter Anna. Youngest daughter Anuka in Sydney could not make it. His friends included former judges from then - Shankar (Court of Appeal), (Chief Judge of Malaya) Tan Sri Siti Norma Yaakob and Datuk KC Vohrah (Court of Appeal).
In a candid interview at his home later, he talked about some of his important cases, the period after Lord President Tun Salleh Abas was sacked in 1988 and how he almost did not make it to the Court of Appeal. In the garden he quoted Shakespeare, with his Great Danes - Hamlet and Dante - in attendance. Hamlet perked up his ears in case his master was quoting from his play but Dante was not interested at all.
Back inside, he said the highlight of his career as a lawyer was being appointed to the High Court. He gave me the ‘slit eyes’ when I asked whether arbitration was where old lawyers and retired judges “are put out to pasture” and lectured me on the history and merits of arbitration.
Retired Court of Appeal judge Tan Sri VC George after he received the Lifetime Achievement Award 2017 from the Malaysian Bar at its annual dinner and dance recently at the Majestic Hotel in KL.
Regarded as the best trial judge and a standard bearer for trials, George clarifies he received the Tan Sri title in 2012 for his work in the community, particularly the Malayalee community.
Excerpts of the interview:
Q: What would you count as the highlight of your career as a lawyer?
A: That could be said to be my appointment as a High Court judge. Any advocate worth his salt in those days - in his mind, secretly - hoped that the culmination of his career would be to become a judge. Being recognised by your peers and being elected chairman of the Bar Council was the real highlight.
Q: Is arbitration where senior lawyers and retired judges are put out to pasture or get their second wind?
A: You got it wrong, Shaila. Arbitration is not something you retire and do. I was sitting as an arbitrator long before I became a judge. When I became a judge there was no more arbitrations until after I retired. Then I found myself very involved in doing arbitrations, domestic as well as international. It is not a “retirement” job.
It is a natural thing for a judge to take off his wig as sit as an arbitrator. I didn’t know I would get work as an arbitrator but suddenly I began being inundated with arbitration. It has become “the thing” now, being encouraged by the Government and the Judiciary.
Q: Would you have remained in litigation, with waning public confidence in the judiciary after the dismissal of Salleh and two Supreme Court judges, if you weren’t already a judge?
A: I could see it (waning) happening. But there was a whole lot of us appointed before that who were competent and the public and lawyers continued to have confidence in them, like the Shankars, KC Vohrahs, NH Chans, Siti Normas, and Shaik Dauds, and VC George, if you will.
Lawyers and litigants were very happy to appear before us (in the then High Court). I continued to sit on the Bench. I don’t think any litigant came to my court and thought he had been shortchanged. All my contemporaries were all very respectable and competent judges, without exception.
Q: What would you count as the highlight of your career as a judge?
A: Not my promotion to the Court of Appeal. When the COA was formed in 1994, one would have thought they would promote the most senior High Court judges. The most senior then was NH Chan. Next, was me, but I heard my name was not on the list.
I marched up to (Lord President Tun) Hamid Omar’s room and said, “reliable sources tell me my name is not on the list.”
Hamid replied “I sent your name, of course I sent your name, but the Prime Minister (Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad) has to decide.”
“In that case,” I said, “I shall go talk to the Prime Minister.” Thereupon he said, “No, no, I will sort it out. It could have been an omission.”
Later that day he called and said, “your name is back on the list.”
So, I was elevated because I forced the issue. But Hamid and whoever was behind the protocol had the last laugh when I went to the Istana to receive my appointment letter (he chuckles). We normally sit according to our seniority. NH Chan sat first and I sat next. Then the registrar came and apologised, “Sorry, sorry Datuk, you’re not sitting there.” I found myself placed almost down the end. It was an embarrassment and I wanted to walk out but Siti Norma and Shankar persuaded me to stay. I blamed Hamid and Hamid blamed Mahathir.
Retired Court of Appeal judge Tan Sri VC George and his daughter Anna, a lawyer in Melbourne. George said she told him she was coming so that she could catch with all her lawyer friends in Malaysia at the event!
Q: So, what was the highlight of your career as a judge?
A: Everyone seems to think the highlight of my career, vis-a-vis my judgments, was the UEM case but there were others which dealt with equally important points.
Adequate Compensation
I was judge in Pahang from 1981 to 1984. One series of cases then involved the state government’s plan to develop the state. The Mentri Besar, before (Datuk Seri) Najib (Tun Razak), wanted to create townships in different parts of the state for the rural people. To get the land, they used the Land Acquisition Act. Under that Act, if the Government has an interest in acquiring land, they issue a ‘Section 4’ notice. Later, it will issue a ‘Section 8’ notice which will state exactly how much land and the exact purpose for which it will be taken, and compensation is then assessed. However, the state issued the second notice six years after the first, offering compensation valued at the time of the first notice. But there was evidence that the market value had increased considerably in those six years. In Oriental Rubber and Oil Palm Sdn Bhd vs Pemungut Hasil Tanah Kuantan (1983), I held the state ran foul of the Federal Constitution provision that landowners receive adequate compensation. Those cases cost the state millions and millions of ringgit. After that they gave the people adequate compensation.
Kanji character trade marks protected
One of my most attractive judgments involved Yomeishu Seizo Co Ltd in 1995 - it is a most fabulous case. It’s a Japanese medicinal herbal wine. They marketed it all over SEA for 100 years under the patented name YOMEISHU, the romanised word which is the phonetic sound of three kanji characters. It sold in a big way in the Chinese community for the good health of men, to improve their abilities...you understand what I mean.
Then a chap from mainland China came up a similar drink and called it Chinese Yang-Ming-Jiu and marketed it in a similar presentation of the trademark name and packaging. He used Chinese characters, same as the Japanese kanji, but the romanised Mandarin was pronounced Yang-Ming-Jiu. I held that the Chinese national had purloined the intellectual property rights of the Japanese and gave an injunction restraining them from marketing their product. (The COA affirmed George’s decision in 2004)
Locus standi
As far as the public is concerned UEM is the best known of my judgments. Particularly, as one of the issues that arose was whether Mahathir, in presiding over this special committee to decide whether to award the contract to build the North-South Highway to United Engineers, ran foul of the Prevention of Corruption Act because United Engineers in fact belonged to Umno - Mahathir was Umno president and two or three others in the committee were Umno members. The other issue was: Did Kit Siang have locus standi to bring the action?
Noting the courts were taking a liberal attitude towards locus standi, I held Kit Siang had locus standi. On the facts before me in this interlocutory matter, I found prima facie, on the face of it, that all those who sat on the committee, including Mahathir, were guilty of an offence under the Act, and therefore there should be an injunction on the contract and the matter should go for a full trial.
The Supreme Court panel then - Salleh, Hamid and (Tan Sri) Hashim Yeop Sani held Kit Siang did not have locus standi and allowed the Government’s appeal. But (Tan Sri) Eusoffe Abdoolcader and (Datuk) George Seah held that my judgment was the correct one. So in effect, it wasn’t a majority judgment but three against three (he says tongue-in cheek).
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