Similarly, Court of Appeal judges in Putrajaya should be permitted a reasonable amount of time to pen their judgments, said former Federal Court judge Gopal Sri Ram.

He said the current eight week-deadline to come up with judgments for parties filing their appeals was not generally feasible.

“Some judges in busy localities are overworked because of the number of cases assigned to them,” he said.

He said judges had to do research when submissions by lawyers were inadequate.

Sri Ram said this in response to cases where judges were unable to meet the deadline to provide judgment, which caused a delay in the appeal process.

FMT reported on Wednesday that a High Court judge in Kuala Lumpur had yet to make available his grounds in a defamation suit though an oral ruling was delivered 30 months ago.

As a result, the Court of Appeal could not set an appeal hearing date.

Two applications for leave to appeal to the Federal Court, relating to the jurisdiction of religious authorities and the Shariah Court in Selangor, were also delayed for about a year as two Court of Appeal benches took a longer time to complete their grounds.

In one of the cases, Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat ordered the hearing to be fixed as the written judgment was not forthcoming.

Finally, the judgment was ready just before one of the three judges who heard the appeal was about to retire.

Sri Ram said judges, who had arrears in judgment, should be relieved from hearing cases and substitute judges should be assigned to cover for them.

Lawyer R Kengadharan said judgements should be delivered speedily once a trial was over.

” A fresh judgment that is sound may persuade a litigant not to file an appeal but that may not be the case if it was delivered many months after trial,” he said.

He said it was the constitutional right of every litigant to obtain a reasoned judgment and providing one demonstrated judicial accountability.

Lawyer Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali said judges hearing criminal trials that carried the death penality must make it a point to deliver their grounds as soon as possible as the liberty of the convicted was at stake.

“The accused will remain in prison and the appellate court will hear appeals only if the judgment is ready,” he said, adding that justice delayed was justice denied .

Rafique said a judgment written after trial would be of quality as the facts of the case were fresh on the judge’s mind.

“In delivering such a judgment, the trial judge would have taken into account the demeanour of witnesses which goes into assessing their credibility,” he added.

The lawyer also acknowledged that a high volume of civil and criminal cases were registered at various courts in Selangor and Federal Territories Kuala Lumpur.