| Recently, the attorney-general moved contempt proceedings against a lawyer for scandalising the Federal Court.
However, it is time that there is legislative intervention by the government to give a statutory basis to the common law powers of the courts to punish for contempt. The Indian Supreme Court in the case of Brahma Prakash Sharma and others vs the state of Uttar Pradesh, in dealing with the contempt of scandalising the court in the context of certain Bar resolutions, refused to restrict the right of the Bar to discuss the conduct of judges, and found there was no contempt of court.
In Sheela Barse's case, the apex court in very strong language said:"The concept of public accountability of the judicial system is, indeed, a matter of vital public-concern for debate and evaluation at a different plane. "The court must avoid confusion between personal protection of a libelled judge and prevention of obstruction of public justice and the community's confidence in that great process."Here, although Parliament has the right by law to impose restrictions on freedom of speech, no written law as such has been passed to deal with contempt of court.
"There must be fairness of state action of any sort, legislative, executive or judicial. No one is above the law. In a similar vein, the Federal Court in Dewan Undangan Negeri Kelantan and anor vs Nordin Salleh and anor, rightly held that:"In testing the validity of state action with regard to fundamental rights, what a court must consider is whether it directly affects the fundamental rights or its inevitable effect or consequence on the fundamental rights is such that it makes their exercise ineffective or illusory.
The judge said:"It is said... that they suggest a want of impartiality, but we do not find that in them, and I am not prepared to accede to the proposition that an imputation of want of impartiality to a judge is necessarily a contempt of court. In the case of MacLeod vs St Aubyn, the judge observed that:"Committals for contempt by scandalising the court itself have become obsolete in this country.
AG and the Judiciary are correct in taking action against Arun Kasi for using social media methods to question Court’s decision. That aside, when are the AG and PDRM going to charge the fellow who uploaded clips of Najib Razak’s trial into the social media?
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