5 The Judiciary under Siege: The 1988 Crisis

This chapter explores the constitutional and political dimensions of the crisis that rocked the Malaysian judiciary in 1988. For the first time in Malaysian legal history, the highest judicial officer in the land was suspended and, after an inquiry to determine whether he should be removed for alleged misbehaviour, was subsequently removed. Following this unprecedented development, two other senior judges of the Supreme Court were also removed from office after an inquiry by a second tribunal. The political dimension cannot be divorced from the constitutional dimension because the legal and constitutional manoeuvrings were consonant with political skirmishes that involved, at one stage, the political survival of Prime Minister Mahathir.