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M'sianjudiciary is 9th least corrupted worldwide (Malaysia kini)
25TH
May 2007
It seems that Malaysians have a better opinion of their
judiciary than citizens of most industrialised nations, and this
has
befuddled Transparency International (TI) Malaysia and the Bar
Council.
According to those surveyed, we have a world-class
judiciary.
Ranked No 9, Malaysia is far ahead of Hong Kong (11),
United Kingdom (21) and United States (33) in a survey on
perceived
judicial corruption of 62 countries carried out by TI last
year.
Malaysia is however behind nations which have traditionally
rank high in TI's annual Corruption Perception Index, including
Denmark (1), Singapore (2), Sweden (3) and Finland
(4).
Malaysia also fared better than Japan (16), South Korea
(29) and Taiwan (44), and most of other Asian countries. The
survey
was revealed in the recently released TI's Global Corruption Report
2007.
When respondents are asked to rank their judiciary system between
1 to 5, only 19 percent of respondents described
Malaysia's judiciary
system as
corrupt.
TI Malaysia chairperson Ramon Navaratnam was unable make
sense of the results. At a public forum on the report today,
he
shared his ambivalent views with Bar Council president Ambiga
Sreenevasan and Institut Integriti Malaysia (IIM) president
Dr Mohd
Tap
Salleh.
Ramon said the methods used by TI was not revealed. "It
would not have been wise to identify who they surveyed because
it is
known that security forces of some nations would abuse that
information."
"And I must reiterate that the survey (perceived
judicial corruption) is not to be confused with Corruption Perception
Index,"
he said. Ramon stressed that TI each year does a
special survey on a certain topic and for 2007, it is on perceived
corruption in the judiciary.
As for the corruption index, which was released late last year,
Malaysia ranks 44 out of 163
countries.
In contrast, countries which Malaysia has outranked on
perceived judicial corruption, had done better than Malaysia in the
corruption index - United Kingdom (11), Hong Kong (15), Japan (17),
United States (20), Taiwan (34) and South Korea
(42).
According to the judicial corruption report, 59,661 people from
all the countries were surveyed between June and September
last
year. TI did not indicate the number of respondents per
country.
"We also don't know who these people are. Are they
foreign investors in other countries or are they residing in
Malaysia? What is the ratio
of foreigners versus locals?" said
Ramon.
Ramon said that he would be contacting TI's Berlin headquarters to
ask for a "proper explanation" on the
survey.
A system that works fairly Ambiga said the results of the
survey might lead people "to rest their laurels"
despite recent campaigns by the
Bar Council to reform the country's
legal system.
"We want to be first class. We want to have first-world
judiciary, whenever we suggest improvement, it's not to be
perceived as nuisance.
We want the system to work fairly," she
said.
Mohd Tap insisted that the ranking system be dropped. "When
there's a ranking system, people would think that we are better than
certain
countries we should stick to the fact that 19 percent of
people thought that the judicial system is
corrupt."
Ramon proposed that the Bar Council and TI-Malaysia
undertake a local survey to "find out the level of faith and
confidence" in the judiciary
and
prosecution services.
During a press conference, Mohd Tap said IIM would coordinate with
the council for the coming survey on public perception on corruption
in general. He did not reveal when the survey would be carried
out.
"It's a good guide for us to know what other people
think. The perception survey reflects reality," said
Ramon.
"However, the methods must be systematic. If you get a
bunch of crooks and ask them: Are you good? They'll say yes," he
added.
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