This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on March 15, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: The judiciary lacks experts in the specialised fields of intellectual property (IP), maritime law and construction disputes, according to outgoing Malaysian Bar president George Varughese.

Hence, he suggested that the judiciary recruits lawyers who are specialised in these fields to help fill the gap, so that judges can have a better grasp of the issues.

“Prior to this for example, companies go to Singapore for maritime cases as they have specialised maritime courts.

“In Malaysia, in order to attract confidence it would be better to have the specialised courts where such disputes could be channelled,” he said.

The Bar president who will relinquish his post tomorrow following the Malaysian Bar annual general meeting (AGM) also noted the possibility that Court of Appeal and Federal Court judges may not have expertise in these fields and hence the need for the government to hire those with the relevant knowledge as judges.

He added that if such disputes cannot be heard here, it is a lost opportunity for the country.

He said this in an interview with several media organisations before the scheduled AGM tomorrow.

At present there is one specialised court each dealing with construction, IP and maritime disputes like the case against the luxury yacht Equanimity.

However, these courts are only located in Kuala Lumpur.

During the launching of the Malaysian Legal Year, Varughese also suggested that more people in private practice be roped in as judges.

Ideally, he said, the ratio of judges appointed from the civil service to those from private practice was 50-50.

Those from the civil service can be sourced from the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) or the Judicial and Legal Service commission, he said.

Varughese said the pool of talent from the private practice is more as there are more than 12,000 members of the Malaysian Bar as compared to 1,200 in the AGC.

He further cited former Chief Justice (CJ) Tun Zaki Azmi and former Federal Court judge Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram as prime examples of luminaries from private practice that has been roped into the judiciary.

Zaki was directly appointed a Federal Court judge from private practice and ascended to the post of the CJ, while Sri Ram was appointed directly to the Court of Appeal in the 1990s before being elevated to the apex court.

Varughese said Zaki was responsible for reforms to the judiciary and disposing of the backlog of cases while Sri Ram came out with many landmark judgments that are continuously being cited and in use as reference today.

He noted that there are many good judges in the present batch and the Malaysian Bar is happy with their performance.