XN000022-1995-04-29 — Page 6

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Judiciary more open and transparent: CJ

The traditional reticence of the Judiciary is a thing of the past, the Chief Justice, Sir Ti Liang Yang, said today (Saturday).

Speaking at the ceremony for the admission of Queen's Counsel this morning, the Chief Justice said: "We are now much more open and much more transparent; we no longer shy away from explaining to the public what we do, what our problems are, and what we hope to achieve."

At a time when the standard of the Bar is being reviewed within the profession, and several aspects of legal services are being debated within the community, Sir Ti Liang suggested "it is both the right and the duty of the senior Bar to examine these issues".

"The legal professions have to march with the times, make themselves more accessible to the common man, and remove some of the myths long held by members of the public," he said.

"The kind of questions which may be asked could be: Is the operation of our legal system too expensive? Is the time it takes to resolve legal problems unacceptably long? Is the law hampered rather than assisted by too many technical rules? Has the whole system become rather too cumbersome?"

Noting that these great issues cried out for study and somehow a balance had to be struck, the Chief Justice said it was encouraging that some of these questions at least were being addressed.

He said the courts placed much importance on pre- trial reviews, skeleton arguments, case management and listing, all designed to shorten waiting times and/or hearing times, as well as to enhance judicial efficiency.

"We encourage the use of Chinese in the Magistrates' courts and the Tribunals, and are actively pursuing the possibility of giving people a choice of using Chinese or English in the higher courts, so as to make our proceedings more easily understood by the layman," Sir Ti Liang said.

"In the final analysis, we the judges and magistrates need the co-operation of the legal professions and the Administration, thus the phrase I have coined recently: 'tripartite co-operation"."