Currently Playing: Athlete-Half Light.
And so across the virtual world, most IIUM Law student bloggers have been logging in to tell all on the whole LAP business. I might as well join in the fray, although its long overdue since the programme’s already halfway done. I’ve been asked by a few of my mates how the whole experience is coming along, and promised them I’d blog about it soon. That was more than a week ago. Guilty, I know. But I might as well.
Two Mondays ago, my fellow colleagues and I gathered at the Conference Room of Wisma Denmark, which stations the Kuala Lumpur High Court of Malaya, Civil Division. After a tour around the building, Chief Registrar Tuan Mohd. Din informed us that he had divided us into groups since he couldn’t manage us all at one time. What with there being around 40 of us, that was understandable. I was assigned to Group 3 which (thankfully) Widaad was assigned to too. The others were Adlan, Aishath, Shifala, and Faru, while Murni and Abang Raihan were to join us the following week.
Initially, I thought that this meant we’d be posted to different parts of the building. When we got our schedules though, we discovered that all five groups were to work on a rotation plan, spending a week or less in different courts. Group 3 were to report for duty as below:
Week 1: Appellate and Special Powers Court (RKK)
Week 2: Lower Courts (Sessions and Magistrates)
Week 3: Commercial Courts and Civil Courts
Week 4: Criminal Courts (this, I look forward to.)
It was only after a few minutes did it register that we were posted to completely different venues, and my Group were to spend only 2 days in Wisma Denmark. I had my scruples about it at first, and made a mental note to switch from stopping at Dang Wangi to Masjid Jamek instead (a mere difference of one stop, so I don’t know what the big deal was to me at that time).
Suffice to say, the first week was…an eye-opener of sorts. Our supervisor whose name I shall not mention here for fear that she has a Friendster account herself and hence, will track me down, was not the friendliest of persons. She was neither welcoming, nor did she act in any way that could convince me that she wasn’t having some sort of PMS day. Her superior was even worse! I don’t get their reluctance to speak English. In fact, I was told off the first time I addressed them in it. I understand that BM is the Bahasa Mahkamah, bla bla bla, but we had 3 Maldivian girls in our group who sadly had to rely on us every time to translate whatever was assigned to us. What was worse was that these PMS-ing women think that we think they can’t speak English, that we were undermining them, when we weren’t. Trust me, it was very much implied in their manner towards us. Whatever.
I’m glad to report that my group is very hardworking though. Almost overly ambitious and enthusiastic. At the RKK, they don’t give you work, you have to ask for it, and when you’re done doing that, you go looking for some more work to do, if only to finish at 4pm. That was how we operated.
The general court behind-the-scenes scenario, is that it’s a place where files outnumber the people. This is no exaggeration. We had a good look on the filing system, and the procedures required to file an appeal, etc etc. Also, we witnessed the ‘long call’, where we got to see chambees being called to the Bar. What a sombre event! Not one twitch of emotion until the (honourable) judge (lest I be disrespectful) called for an adjournment. Oh yes, we had a dialogue session with him as well. He was…ok. There was a particular hearing which he presided over, and I had to work hard to contain my laughter, in court no less. The chap (still honourable!) was rocking on his chair and staring at the celing, not bothering to hide his long, wide yawns while the counsel was aggressively presenting her case! Aw man, keeping sobre was an effort in itself!
Mr. Murali proved to be the best informer on the going ons in the legal world–in matters that they don’t want you to know. Him, I liked. He was upfront about things and told it as it was. He’s been working for 30 years and will be retiring this year. A great pity, because if he stayed long enough, we’d be submitting our petitions to do our chambering to him after we graduate.
On the last day, our supervisor finally managed a proper smile and gave us an insight on proceedings within chambers. That was nice of her, albeit the fact that she chose to be less hostile make an attempt to be a little civil on our last day there. At least we had good comments on our reports. In retrospect, I’d say that we learnt a great deal, bad personalities and all. In the real world, that would be the way we’d be treated. Widaad and I figured that we’d rather start off with taking the blinds off our eyes and seeing things as it was rather than be blindfolded into thinking that things would be all dandy once we enter the working world.
As for this week, nothing much to report. Our new supervisor, Puan Ong, had such a nice character that I was taken completely off guard. In fact, her easiness made me feel uneasy! Heh, that last supervisor must have left a deep impact on me.
We attended hearing after hearing, both civil and criminal. The only civil case I enjoyed hearing about was about medical negligence. The lawyers were practically at each other’s throats! We also encountered oppurtunities to see a court interpreter at work, a judge analysing evidence from a video tape and things we hear happen at courts but never get to actually see. Then when that was all done, we’d go court-hopping, looking for other cases to hear. Geeks? You bet. 
The criminal cases mostly involved drug offences. Heck, the bulk of criminal cases were all drug-related. Don’t even get me started there. Just don’t. The apathy of the whole situation just riles me to bits.
And…that’s pretty much it. Another 2 weeks to go. I hear them people at the Criminal Courts are having a ball of a time, so I can’t wait til next week. Its a good thing, this rotation plan. We got more than we bargained for, which in this case, is a good thing. Add on to the fact that all these courts will be moving next year to Jalan Duta, where works on the largest courthouse in Asia is currently in motion., and I’d consider us lucky we had a chance to get glimpses of these old old buildings of Sultan Abdul Samad. The historical built of the whole architecture brings a feeling of nostalgic proportions.
What is it with me and architecture anyway?
Enough said here.
Ps-On my mode of transportation, I’m proud to inform that within my first week alone, I’ve been on everything ranging from taxis, LRTs, commuters and buses. Ha, apa lagi yang belum? Apa lagi nak tambah? More on public transportations later.
