The Fallen Angel
Thursday, September 15, 2011
ISA: Announcement vs. Process of Parliament
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
"Biar Papa Asal Bergaya"?
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Tulis dalam BM plak
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Lawyers' Current Burden
"PRACTISING law used to be fulfilling, but litigation lawyers are suffering from stress brought about by changes in the judicial system.
First, the judiciary brought forward court cases to 8.30am without thinking about the difficulty posed to lawyers or litigants who have to travel out of town to court, or the fact that the earliest flight from Kuala Lumpur to Penang would not get lawyers to court on time.
Lawyers, clients and litigants rush to get to court at 8.30am, but find that judges or magistrates arrive at 9am.
There are even judges who insist on starting with applications at 8am, so that they can start their trials at 8.30am.
Then came night court. There was a time when judges would hear cases until 9pm, often without the consent of lawyers, parties and interpreters, and even sometimes without air-conditioning. I have come out of court at 9pm.
Next came key performance indicators.
Orders to judicial officers to complete pre-2000 cases meant the judiciary awoke from its long slumber and began sprinting like Jamaica's Olympic winner Usain Bolt.
The intention may be good, but the implementation was not.
Many judges and magistrates took short cuts, allowing summary judgments or allowing striking-out applications when they should not have, striking out cases for trivial reasons and refusing adjournments for valid reasons, ultimately sacrificing justice for statistics.
Justice hurried is justice buried. Guidelines on the granting of adjournments were misunderstood and, until today, most judges remain adamant that lawyers can get adjournments only if they are dying.
Meanwhile, judges, magistrates and registrars continue to adjourn matters when they are on emergency leave, medical leave, annual leave, away on courses, attending seminars, attending official or state functions and attending judges' conferences.
Let's move on to the tracking system and computerised case listings in courts. We've got cases on C-track, T-track, M-track, A-track, fast track, slow track and, worst of all, no track.
We've got computers telling us our cases are listed or unlisted. Recently, I went to a department at the Shah Alam courts in the MRCB building, keyed in my case number, found my case was unlisted, was told to go to the kiosk to enquire and was sent by the kiosk to the third floor to go through a thick manual of case numbers to find the registrar's name.
Then, after finding out which floor the registrar was on, I went to that registrar's room and found the door locked with a notice stating that that registrar was away and to go to the kiosk to find out who the replacement registrar was.
We've got magistrates, Sessions Court judges, High Court judges, Court of Appeal and Federal Court judges who need to improve on their knowledge of law.
It has to be remembered that it is a great responsibility to decide on matters that have strong ramifications for litigants and parties.
Judges, magistrates and registrars must keep abreast of the law if they want to dispense justice fairly and competently.
The proposed amendments to increase the jurisdiction and power of Sessions Court judges and magistrates is even more worrying because of the quality of these judicial officers.
I often see lawyers doing tonnes of research, producing and submitting case authorities to registrars, magistrates and judges but to no avail.
Many registrars, magistrates and judges also restrict submissions to five pages.
Some judges and magistrates force lawyers to submit on the spot after their case ends, yet they themselves cannot decide on the spot.
Recently, courts were fitted with a video and voice recording system.
Judges and magistrates can save time and effort instead of writing down every word.
Again, a good idea but with bad implementation.
Courts abroad can produce and send the transcript of trials to lawyers or parties within a few hours after the close of hearing each day, but not here.
Even with this system, courts tell lawyers to prepare and submit a disc to obtain the recording, then take the disc back and get the transcript typed out for the court's approval.
Another recent event is the judiciary issuing letters to legal firms to fix new dates, bring forward or change dates for hearings, appeals, case management, mediation, mentions and show causes.
When there are conflicting dates, as is usually the case now, the courts' response to lawyers is: "That's your problem. No adjournment."
These, and other problems that lawyers face, have been raised in many meetings between the bar and the bench.
The chief justice said he had taken note of these problems and would brief his officers, but we don't see any improvement.
Most pre-2000 and many up to 2008 cases have already been disposed of. The judiciary can now afford to take off some of the pressure. To a certain extent, the chief justice achieved something to be proud of, but not without causing a lot of hardship.
In my home state, we have a joint working committee with our judiciary.
But even then, judges are not as receptive to the requests of the Bar as they used to be.
I am compelled to write this letter because the Bar Council has failed to stand up and protect its own members "without fear or favour". I hear more and more lawyers complaining about the Bar Council's inaction and silence these days."
The end result - litigants suffering from paying high legal fees. The Bar Council expects lawyers' fees for court cases to increase by between 300% and 400% this year. Years back, you can expect to pay probably around RM2,000 to RM3,000 for legal fees to take up a matter to the Magistrate Court. Now, it may rise up to RM8,000 or higher. Too hard to swallow? Indeed, but lawyers are not taking advantage of the current situation nor attempting to make more profits. The increase is attributed to the increase of responsibilities and long working hours that lawyers need to swallow in line with the currently implemented fast tracking system by the Judiciary. Cases filed into Courts nowadays need to be disposed off within 9 months.
It could be quite disturbing now that access to legal services has become less despite it is a basic consumer and human right.
The NEX-3
I bought a Sony NEX-3 Compact Interchangeable Lens Camera December last year. Interchangeable lens camera was primarily dominated by Micro Four Thirds models from Olympus and Panasonic. In recent years, Sony ventured into the risk of producing its own Alpa-Nex series; started off with Sony NEX-3, followed by Sony NEX-5. The NEX-3 uses a larger APS-C sensor—the same one used in Sony's smallest and lightest D-SLR, the Alpha-A230.
I was in dilemma to choose between a D-SLR camera or the NEX-3. Eventually, I opted to the NEX-3 after much considerations and surveys simply because the NEX-3 can compete with D-SLRs that fetch twice of the price of the NEX-3, offering superb image quality, speed, and a robust feature set in the smallest body I've seen in this class of camera. I have no regret owning the NEX-3, not at the moment at least.
The NEX-3 offers 2 type of lens. Sony called them "E-Amount" lens. The 16mm f/2.8 kit lens and the 18-55mm f/4.5-5.6 kit lens. I opted to the later. The NEX-3 offers full VGA resolution, the 921,600-pixel 3-inch LCD on the NEX-3 is the sharpest of any compact interchangeable lens camera I've seen, and it's easy to view in even the brightest light.
The best part is its size. This 311.8 grams camera measures just 2.4 by 4.4 by 2.4 inches, small enough to comfortably stow in a coat pocket or purse, ideal for travelling purposes without missing the opportunity to capture superb quality photos. Its limited but user friendly dedicated controls—a shutter release with zoom toggle, power, and playback buttons, in addition to a scroll wheel and three variable buttons contributes to the NEX-3's compact design. The display is amazing. Its sit on an articulating arm and can tilt as far as 90 degrees up or 45 degrees down, so you don't need to keep the camera at eye level to frame your shots.
What is good next? The NEX-3 features speedy start up, averaging 2 seconds between the time you power on the camera and it captures its first image. The NEX-3 also snaps 2.3 frames per second in continuous shooting mode, and an even-more-impressive 7 frames per second in Speed Priority mode. I was able to capture up to 14 consecutive images in this mode when I tested my NEX-3 on my palm!
You got to try out the NEX-3's panorama mode. Its allow you to simply move the camera up, down, left or right to create one panoramic shot. The Anti-Motion Blur feature fires six frames, analyzes each, and takes the least noisy portion of each to merge into one crisp image. Shooting HD video with the NEX-3 is a treat. Thanks to the NEX-3's larger APS-C sensor and refocusing is fast and silent. You can then watch your HD video recording via your HD TV.
Things always come with pros and cons. The NEX-3 is not an exception. At least as at now, I think that the major downside is that you have to get 2 major side accessories - the viewfinder and the flash device.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Beware of Robbery!
2 robbers (said to be Chinese), one with a pistol; another with a knife broke into their rented house at Maluri. All 4 of them were tied up. Their valuable belongings including but not limited to cash, handphones and jeweleries were taken with force. The robbers further took their ATM cards and credit cards; forced them to reveal the pin numbers and threaten to leave a bullet or two inside their head should the pins furnished are fake and/or false.
While one of the robbers guard the 4 with a pistol on hand, the other went to the nearest ATM machine to withdraw any single cent that is available in those accounts. The 2 then went off without releasing the 4 poor girls. My said colleague is now suffering from traumatic experience and still under great fear. It was lucky that she and her housemates were not raped or seriously injured.
They then went to lodge a police report. It is disgraceful that the police officer merely warn them to be extra careful next round. I must say that it is very common to hear such a remark - "lain kali berhati-hatilah sikit". If that is so; and indeed it is, it comes to no surprise that crime is widespreading in our country.
I am however minded to suggest the following precautions:-
- Be extra careful while you are at any parking bay even when the lights are brightened on and crowds nearby you. Should you see someone (don't be deceived by the look, race, size, age and sex) following you from afar, or standing somewhere nearby your car; purportedly making a phone call, looking for something, please immediately leave the place/return to the shopping mall or places with crowds instead of approaching your car. Only go to your car when there is nobody nearby your car and nobody following you at a close distance. Once you are in your car, don't bother to start the engine or warming up the engine at the first place. Remember the first thing that you MUST do when you get into your car is to lock the door with no delay. Start the engine only when your door has been locked. This tip is useful to avoid stranger(s) from entering your car. Likewise, when you reached certain destination, please ensure that there is nobody suspicious nearby your car before you stop the engine and unlock the door.
- Be extra careful when you reached your house's doorstep (especially for those who stay at condo, apartment of flat house). Should you see some unfamiliar faces standing near to your doorstep or your neighboring doorstep, it is advisable that you don't enter your house. Cause some delay by walking away to the car park, nearby shops or park. Immediately lock your front door once you are in your house. Do not safe your pocket from high quality equipped with extra securities devices door lock.
- Don't open your door for unfamiliar faces or stanger(s).
- If you see a or some poor face(s) waiving at you for a ride while you are driving, don't bother to stop. Be cruel instead. Kind people always taken for a ride!
- It is also advisable that you should have several bank accounts. Do not hold with you or the best is do not apply for an ATM card for account(s) that has substantial amount of saving. Park your money (for substantial amount) in a "non-ATM" account.
- Be extra careful and don't entertain unfamiliar faces or stanger(s) that is trying to approach you; even when you are at crowded places.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
LCCT Malaysia
This low cost terminal is specifically built at KL International Airport to cater to the growing passengers of the Low Cost Airlines, especially the passengers of Malaysia's first 'no-frills' airline, Air Asia. LCCT located 20km away from the KLIA main terminal building. Construction of the LCCT was on a fast track basis beginning June 2005 at an approximate cost of RM 108 million. LCCT was opened on the 3rd day of March 2006 and fully in operation on the 26th day of the same month and year.
What can I say about LCCT? LOW COST CARRIER TERMINAL - the name tell the whole story! Its terminal facilities and amenities are very basic with a single floor operation area. Hence, you can forget about seeing travellators, escalators and aerobridges. I can hardly find any good restaurant around here. The WIFI that I am using now is quite slow. I don't see ample of seats provided for public inside, what more outside the terminal. Lots of people standing with their huge luggage. The washrooms are a litle bit dirty and produce some uncomfortable smells. Car park however is quite spacious.
Well, Low Cost Carrier! What do you and can you expect. Low cost means everything is basic. Let not talk more about it, hopefully improvement can be seen periodically. I guess I have to go now. I will have to board the aircraft soon. See ya!