N Sivananthan added that Court of Appeal judge Hamid Sultan Abu Backer, who wrote the 65-page document, would be obliged to answer all questions posed by MACC officials in the course of their investigation.
“Under Section 30 (3)(b) of the MACC Act, a witness or suspect is obliged to disclose all information within his knowledge, failing which an offence is committed,” he said.
The public prosecutor would be able to frame charges against potential offenders if MACC investigators collected sufficient evidence, he added.
“At the moment, the contents of the affidavit cannot be assumed to be true.
“All allegations must be corroborated to determine their veracity,” he said, adding that the judges indicated by Hamid must also be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
He added however that there was no criminal wrongdoing in the report, which was lodged by the Chief Registrar’s Office of the Federal Court.
“There may be elements of graft for MACC to investigate, but no criminal wrongdoing,” said Sivananthan, who has gone through the affidavit authored by Hamid.
The Chief Registrar’s Office said on Friday that it made the report as the “sweeping contents” of the affidavit had tarnished the image of the judiciary.
It said the allegations might undermine public confidence in the institution and would have an adverse effect on the administration of justice.
MACC deputy chief commissioner (operations) Azam Baki said his officers would meet with Hamid this week to get further details on the affidavit.
“We want to get more information from the judge on the document since we are only relying on reports in the media,” Azam had said.
Lawyer Mior Nor Haidir Suhaimi said it would have been better for Hamid to have written to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, who appointed judges, and to extend a copy of his complaint to the prime minister and chief justice.
“Instead, he filed an affidavit and got himself involved,” he said, adding that the Pakatan Harapan government, which had pledged to uphold the rule of law, would have to seriously consider setting up a Royal Commission of Inquiry.
He also said the affidavit had cast unnecessary aspersions on the integrity of the judiciary as it had not identified individuals or specific instances of third parties defrauding the government to make false claims.
“He has put the public and the legal fraternity in a guessing game, which is an unhealthy trend,” he said.
Hamid had affirmed the affidavit in support of a legal action by lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo against the purported failure by Chief Justice Richard Malanjum to complete investigations into two cases of alleged judicial interference.
One is a sedition case against Sangeet’s father, the late Karpal Singh, while another was made by Hamid, who claimed he was chided by a top judge for delivering a dissenting judgment in the M Indira Gandhi unilateral conversion case.
Malanjum’s special officer Mohd Aizuddin Zolkeply, in an affidavit in reply to Sangeet’s originating summons, said investigations into Karpal’s case were suspended due to an ongoing police probe and the pending appeal before the Federal Court.
He also said the probe into Karpal’s case could not be carried out as the three Court of Appeal judges were still serving.
Regarding the second case, Malanjum had said the investigation could not be carried out into the alleged misconduct as the judge in question had retired.