He said in a blog post that activists had an agenda and would not be able to give fair and balanced consideration.

“People to judge judges must be fair themselves.

“In any event, if you do not know the job, you should not be judging the people who do it.”

Hamid was responding to the Malaysian Bar’s proposal that the four “eminent persons” appointed to the JAC should come from the Attorney-General’s Chambers, lawyers’ representatives, the academia and civil society.

Its president, George Varughese, said this following the appointments of former Court of Appeal judges Mah Weng Kwai, Hishamudin Yunus and Linton Albert, and law professor Shad Saleem Faruqi by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad for a two-year term from Sept 4.

Hamid, however, welcomed the idea of having an academic in the JAC but said the person should be from the law faculty as he or she would then be able to evaluate court judgments.

Otherwise, he said, the academics would only depend on newspaper reports of the decisions made and agreeing with it “without even knowing the quality and the correctness of their judgments in law and on the facts”.

“In judging judges, it is their judgments that matter, not the decisions or the outcome of the cases.”

As for the idea of including practising lawyers in the JAC, Hamid said the proposal could be considered if, during the period of their appointments, their firms cease handling civil or criminal cases.

He said this is because lawyers attached to the JAC would have an advantage over lawyers for the opposite party when appearing in court. Hamid added the same argument could be extended if lawyers from their firms appear in court.