The tribunal that sacked Malaysia's top judge was chaired by the man who replaced him

In June 1988, five judges of Malaysia's Supreme Court issued an order staying a tribunal that was sitting in judgment on their own Lord President.

Lawyers took the order to Parliament, where the tribunal was meeting. They were barred at the gates. The court had to ask police to effect delivery. The gates opened grudgingly.

Within weeks, all five judges were suspended. Two were removed. The Lord President was gone.

This is the 1988 judicial crisis, and almost forty years later Malaysians still argue about it. Here's what actually happened.

1. How it started: the UMNO 11 case

The crisis didn't begin with judges. It began with a political fight.

1987 — UMNO party elections produced a bitterly contested result. Eleven UMNO members challenged the outcome in court. The case became known as the UMNO 11.

The stakes were enormous. The litigation went to the heart of the ruling party's legitimacy, and the appeal was heading to the Supreme Court.

Context that matters: in the years before 1988 the Supreme Court had been increasingly willing to rule independently of the executive. That was the backdrop against which everything else happened.

2. The letter to the Agong

In early 1988, Tun Salleh Abas wrote to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, with copies to the Rulers, expressing concerns about criticism of the judiciary by the executive.

What happened next: the King referred Salleh's letter to the Prime Minister, with the command that appropriate action be taken on the basis of the complaint.

25 May 1988 — the Prime Minister wrote to the Agong recommending Salleh's suspension under Article 125(5) of the Federal Constitution, pending establishment of a tribunal under Article 125(3).

The suspension took effect the next day.

The charges put to Salleh in writing included:

• That in an August 1987 speech, on receiving an honorary doctorate from Universiti Malaya, he made statements criticising the government that displayed prejudice and bias, incompatible with his position
• That in a January 1988 speech at a book launch, he made statements discrediting the government and undermining public confidence in its administration of the country according to law

3. The tribunal and its chairman

Article 125(3) requires that a judge may only be removed on the recommendation of a tribunal.

The six-member tribunal was:

• Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Omar — acting Lord President, chairman
• TS Sinnathuray — Singapore Supreme Court judge
• Abdul Aziz Mohamed Zain — former Federal Court judge
• Mohamed Zahir Ismail — former High Court judge, then Dewan Rakyat Speaker
• KAP Ranasinghe — Chief Justice of Sri Lanka
• Lee Hun Hoe — Chief Justice of Borneo

The composition is the problem, and it's not a subtle one.

Hamid Omar had been appointed Chief Justice of Malaya in 1984, taking over from Salleh. He was acting Lord President while Salleh was suspended. And after the tribunal recommended Salleh's removal, Hamid Omar became Lord President — later the first Chief Justice of Malaysia when the office was renamed, serving from 1988 to 1994.

The man chairing the inquiry into whether the Lord President should be removed succeeded him in the job.

Other features of the proceedings:

• The tribunal sat in camera
• Salleh was entitled to counsel; his counsel chose not to cross-examine any witnesses
• Salleh's memoir May Day for Justice alleged the Attorney General was advising the tribunal at every step, stopping short of writing the report himself

4. The stay order, and the gates of Parliament

This is the part that reads like fiction.

Five judges of the Supreme Court — including Tan Sri Wan Suleiman Pawanteh and Datuk George Seah — ordered a stay of the tribunal.

Salleh's lawyers took the order to Parliament, where the tribunal was sitting. They were refused entry. Only when the court was informed and the judges asked police to effect delivery did the gates open.

Then it moved fast. The five judges were suspended. A second tribunal convened in September to deal with them.

The government demanded apologies. Three gave them. Wan Suleiman Pawanteh and George Seah refused — and were removed.

Seah's remark has become the line most quoted from the whole affair: "History will be my judge." He is said to have invoked Socrates refusing an order because it was wrong to obey it.

5. The timeline of removal

• 7 July 1988 — the first tribunal submits its report to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, recommending Salleh's removal both as a judge and as Lord President, for misbehaviour
• 8 August 1988 — the Agong ratifies the decision. Salleh is removed after 22 years of service
• 9 August 1988 — the day after Salleh's removal, the UMNO 11 appeal is dismissed by a Supreme Court panel presided over by Hamid Omar

That sequence is the crux of the historical argument. The appeal that would have determined the ruling party's fate was heard not by the nine-judge full bench that Salleh was to preside over, but by a differently constituted panel — chaired by the man who had led the tribunal that removed him — and dismissed one day after his removal took effect.

Whether that was cause or coincidence is precisely what Malaysians have argued about since.

6. The 2008 reckoning — money, not an apology

Twenty years on, the matter returned.

2008 — newly appointed de facto Law Minister Zaid Ibrahim pressed for an apology and compensation, saying the government had to openly apologise and that "serious transgressions had been committed by the previous administration."

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi described the crisis as one the nation had never recovered from, and announced ex-gratia payments at a Malaysian Bar dinner — alongside a Judicial Appointments Commission to nominate, appoint and promote judges.

The payments, disclosed in Parliament by Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz:

But not an apology. Then-Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak stated the payment "does not tantamount to revisiting whatever that has been decided. It is not to be construed as any form of an apology" — rather, a way of addressing the personal hardship endured.

And a striking administrative footnote. Asked why the judges received pensions, Nazri said it was because it involved early retirement, not dismissal — "They were not sacked, the Government told them to retire early."

The other side, in his own words. Mahathir Mohamad published a detailed defence, arguing the ex-gratia payments were politically motivated after the 2008 election result, that it was Salleh and his fellow judges who brought the judiciary into disrepute, and that he had followed procedure. He wrote: "They are my prosecutors and they are also my judges."

We set that out because a page about a contested historical event should include the principal figure's own account, not only his critics'.

7. What actually changed

The Panel of Eminent Persons. A review panel was convened to study the findings and reports of both tribunals, to consider the definition of judicial misbehaviour they had adopted, and to consider whether the tribunals' composition, process and conclusions were justified or appropriate.

The Judicial Appointments Commission, announced in 2008, was intended to make appointments transparent. Critics at the time noted its advisory character — final authority remaining with the Prime Minister to recommend to the Agong and the Conference of Rulers.

Article 125 still governs removal. A judge may only be removed on a tribunal's recommendation. The lesson of 1988 is that the mechanism is only as strong as the tribunal's composition — and nothing in the text prevented the acting Lord President from chairing the inquiry into his predecessor.

And Salleh himself, years later, when asked to comment on denials of responsibility: "I'm very tired of it." He thought everyone else should move on too.

Why this still matters

Three reasons this isn't only history.

It shaped the doctrine. The independence of the judiciary as a live constitutional question in Malaysia dates from here, and it's cited in every subsequent debate — including the current push to separate the Attorney General and Public Prosecutor. See also: [One person is the government's lawyer AND decides who gets prosecuted](/p/attorney-general-public-prosecutor-malaysia-role-criminal-court)

The mechanism is unchanged. Article 125 tribunals remain the route for removing a judge.

It's the reference point. When Malaysians argue about judicial independence — over a controversial appointment, a surprising acquittal, or a case involving the powerful — 1988 is the shorthand everyone reaches for.