Recusal deadline Wednesday for judge on Nizar court case

By Debra Chong | Malaysianinsider

Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin looking

buoyant outside High Court with his supporters.

— Pic by Choo Choy May

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 23 — The sitting judge in the High Court here will decide on Wednesday whether to recuse himself or not from hearing the civil suit to decide who is the legitimate Menteri Besar (MB) of Perak.

Justice Mohamad Ariff Yusof of the Appellate and Special Powers division of the High Court was to have set the date of mention for the MB vs MB case today.

However, he wanted to clear the air over the possibility that he may be accused of bias in hearing the judicial review filed on Feb 13 by Pasir Panjang assemblyman, Datuk Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin to be declared the legitimate chief executive in the government of the silver state.

Justice Ariff had last week disclosed in court that he had acted as a legal advisor to Pas and PKR besides representing the Barisan Nasional (BN) in court back when he was still a lawyer.

He had then volunteered to step down from hearing the case, noting that there might be some public objection that he was prejudiced based on the reasons given.

However, Justice Ariff, who is now a Judicial Commissioner and has quit from being a member of any political party, said he wanted the Attorney General’s Chambers’ views that by doing so he would be following the law.

Datuk Kamaludin Md Said, who replaced senior federal counsel See Mee Chun in representing the AG’s Chambers today, offered that Justice Ariff should step down in order to avoid negative public perception which had entered the “public domain” due to the highly political nature of the suit.

“In order to maintain the standard of public confidence in the judiciary, it is very appropriate Your Lordship recuse himself,” Kamaludin said, basing his view on the fact that he had followed the proceedings from the previous week on newspaper reports.

Nizar’s lead counsel, Sulaiman Abdullah, argued for Justice Ariff to remain on the bench, echoing his stand last week.

Quoting several previous court cases, Sulaiman sought to prove that Justice Ariff had not met the requirements necessary to disqualify himself from hearing the case.

Pointing out that there were two categories for disqualification: automatic disqualification and non-automatic, Sulaiman said that Justice Ariff’s reasons did not meet the first and were not strong enough to qualify for the second category.

Sulaiman added that Justice Ariff had a duty to hear the case and should not be moved to disqualify himself on the basis that there may be strong public criticism against him if he remains on the bench.

The two lawyers spent over an hour arguing on the merits and demerits of Justice Ariff hearing the case before the judge decided to step in.

Nizar, who yesterday moved out of the official residence in Ipoh and into a private home some 5km away, maintains he is the lawful MB and claims that Barisan Nasional’s Pangkor assemblyman, Datuk Zambry Abdul Kadir, who was recently installed to the office, is an imposter.

Nizar, who was in court today, told reporters he wanted Justice Ariff to hear his case.

Asked if he would, like Zambry, is said to be seeking the Queen’s Counsel for advice over the Perak matter which has turned into a constitutional crisis at not only the state but federal level, Nizar said: “I’m confident in our law here. Our constitution is very strong. We don’t have to depend on foreign influence.”