PUTRAJAYA: The lives and legacies of four distinguished judges have been celebrated in heartfelt speeches by families, legal figures and the Chief Justice in reference proceedings at the Federal Court.
Former chief justices Tun Mohd Eusoff Chin, 91, Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah, 86, Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad, 84, and former chief judge of Malaya Tan Sri Siti Norma Yaakob, 86, were honoured in the formal ceremonial court session held in memory of departed members of the legal profession.
Three of them passed on this year while Mohamed Dzaiddin died in 2024.
In his speech, Chief Justice Tun Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh made reference to Francis Bacon’s essay “Of Judicature” that the office of judges has reference to four parties – the parties that sue, to the advocates that plead, to the clerks and ministers of justice beneath them and to the sovereign or the state above them.
“I have come to think that each of the four whom we honour had received an institution shaped by the other, strengthened it in his or her own way and handed the institution on to the next.”
In his recollection of them, the top judge shared his personal experiences with them, their work ethics and their achievements.
Mohd Eusoff held the longest tenure as a CJ for six years and 86 days.
According to Wan Ahmad Farid, Mohd Eusoff was told that he treated judges like children when he introduced a clocking-in system for them.
“But he was not discouraged. When punctuality outside Kuala Lumpur proved uneven, he phoned judges’ quarters early in the morning and told whoever answered that the judge’s good friend, Eusoff Chin, was on the line.”
“Punctuality, I am told, improved remarkably,” Wan Ahmad Farid said.
Mohd Eusoff’s successor Mohamed Dzaiddin served for barely two years and three months, but Wan Ahmad Farid said the short tenure was never confused with a small duty.
Mohamed Dzaiddin began his working experience as a journalist, then served as a police inspector and later read law and invited to the Bench.
“Perhaps that breadth of experience explains his gift. He understood justice not only as judges see it but also through the eyes of the public.
“In my humble view, Tun Dzaiddin taught the judiciary to listen again,” Wan Ahmad Farid said.
Abdul Hamid helmed the judiciary for an even shorter time with less than a year under his belt but his work endured far beyond his tenure.
There were 567 judgments, eight books and more than 500 speeches and working papers.
“His work on the relationship between Syariah and civil jurisdictions, collected in Konflik dan Pengharmonian, continues to be a guide for judges when called upon to decide where one jurisdiction ends and the other begins.”
“This, ladies and gentleman, is no small inheritance,” Wan Ahmad Farid added.
He said he once asked the then prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi why Abdul Hamid was appointed as the CJ.
“The answer came back short and blunt: ‘Young man, I know him and he’s a man of integrity.’”
As for Siti Norma, he paid tribute to her “list of firsts”.
She was the first female Malay barrister to be called at Gray’s Inn in 1962; the first woman to hold an executive post in the Judicial and Legal Service in 1963, the first female President of the Sessions Court in 1967 and later in 1980, she was the first female chief registrar of the Federal Court.
Siti Norma went on to become the first woman appointed to the High Court in 1983, the first to sit on the newly established Court of Appeal in 1994 and the first to be elevated to the Federal Court in 2001.
On Feb 8, 2005, she became the first woman to be Chief Judge of Malaya.
Wan Ahmad Farid said that these judges had done their part.
“It now falls to us to do ours for those who come after.”
