[Hakim Muhammad Kamil menyangkal cerita Eusoff Chin mengenai perbualan talifon itu. Adalah tidak mungkin beliau salah faham atau tersilap menafsir perbualan itu kerana ia "perkara enteng sahaja".

Hakim Kamil juga menafikan Eusoff mengungkit dua kes petisyen yang serupa. Ia tidak disebut langsung kata beliau.

Selain itu Hakim Kamil menyangkal tuduhan Eusoff bahawa beliau agak lambat menyelesaikan kes kerana Mahakamah Persektuan di bawah Eusoff sendiri pernah lewat sehingga 30 bulan sedangkan kes Lukas cuma 5 bulan sahaja - itu pun kerana beliau banyak berpindah tempat kerja. Sepatutnya Eusoff menegur kes lain yg lebih teruk lagi seperti Keputusan Arifin Jaka.

Masalah lewat bukan kerana kelembapan Hakim Kamil tetapi akibat birokrasi dan lembabnya kakitangan perkhidmatan awam walaupun ia satu permintaan dari hakim kerajaan. Tanpa kerjasama sebaiknya kes akan menjadi panjang dan berlarutan. Yang menariknya kenapa Ariffin Jaka begitu lambat sedangkan kes yang diadilinya tidak serumit kes Lukas yang lebih panjang? - Editor]

http://www.nstpi.com.my/Current_News/NST/Thursday/ Frontpage/20010614235136/Article/

14 Jun 2001

Muhammad Kamil disputes Eusoffe Chin's version of Likas conversation No misconstruing over a "very simple matter"

By Sujatani Poosparajah

High Court judge Datuk Muhammad Kamil Awang today disputed retired Chief Justice Tun Mohd Eusoff Chin's version of their conversation about the Likas election petition. He insisted that there was no question of him miscontruing their conversation which took place two years ago because it is a "very simple matter."

"He's entitled to his opinion," he told reporters in his chambers.

"That's what he said."

In his judgment delivered last Friday, Muhammad Kamil had alleged, that a former top judge had called him to direct that the petition be struck out without a hearing.

On Tuesday, Eusoff said he had telephoned the judge to ask him to expedite the hearing of the petition, but never asked him to strike it out.

Eusoff said there could have been a misunderstanding because he had brought up two earlier High Court decisions on the same point, in which the petitions were struck out.

Muhammad Kamil, however, said Eusoff never brought up these two cases.

"He (Eusoff) never mentioned that ... because I'm directly under the Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak.," he said. "Normally, the Chief Justice speaks through the Chief Judge."

Q: So it's not normal for the Chief Justice to call you up?

A: It's not normal but he can. But normally he goes through the Chief Judge. However, it's not wrong for him to call me. (But) he has got no business to direct me. But he can go directly to me because he's the boss, you see.

"Is it reasonable what he said, that he called me to tell me to speed up the case? The case had not begun...it was at the stage of preliminary objections.

"According to the report I read in the newspapers, he said he gave me two cases. Those cases were the judgments of two High Court judges, so the decisions were not binding," he said. "I'm free to make a decision based on the facts of my case." Asked if it was Eusoff whom he was referring to as the caller, Muhammad Kamil said: "He (Eusoff) said it. I don't have to say it."

Muhammad Kamil also said Eusoff's suggestion that he was a slow worker was untrue.

"This election case was the longest (of my cases). I took about five months to write the judgment because I was transferred from Kuching to Kota Baru and then to Kuala Lumpur. I don't think that is a fair statement. They should have looked at my record.

"The Federal Court took 30 months in one case ... I think when he (Eusoff) says I'm slow, why doesn't he look in his own backyard?" he said.

Asked how he felt about this controversy happening when he was about to retire on June 25, Muhammad Kamil said he didn't expect it to happen.

On Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Dr Rais Yatim's comment that it was "abnormal for him to raise personal problems in his judgment, he said the matter had been taken out of context.

"In my judgment, I said it had become a habit for government departments not to respond to public letters and I know this from personal experience," he said. "I wrote to the State Government and there's no response. A judge writing to the State Government... and no response...?

Q: "So it's not abnormal?"

A: "It is not abnormal. Judges in England and elsewhere do that..."

In that portion at the end of his 29-page judgment, Muhammad Kamil had given two examples of government departments not responding to letters:

"... where my son had applied for a temporary work permit which was refused, and I wrote an appeal to the authority concerned; and in another case, my daughter had applied for a scholarship for a one-year postgraduate course."

The controversy over the alleged directive to strike out the petition erupted last Friday when Muhammad Kamil's judgment was delivered, declaring the Likas election result null and void.