Yang Amat Arif Tun, tsk tsk tsk...

I am real busy this week. So there will be no real writing by me.

However, ladies and gentlemen, feast on this news from the Malaysian Insider.

This is exactly what our judiciary has been reduced to. A place to implement "new and fresh" ideas in order to speed up justice. Speed up justice konon!

When a "new and fresh" system is hatched out without proper and in-depth thought and planning - if at all they think in the first place - this is what is going to happen. It becomes STUPID!

This e-filing is beginning to sound just like one of those rip-off initiative of which the recent 1Malaysia e-mail is just but one example.

Just feast, and then weep, on this one:

"First, lawyers are required to get an organisation certificate that costs RM1,500 each from MSC Trustgate, a third-party company, in order to make the e-filing.

The certificate is only good for two years and is non-transferable.

But the lawyers are questioning the need to pay a third party for digital certificates, noting in the Singapore experience, it was all handled by the court registry.

They claim the RM1,500 fee goes against the principle of access to justice as the costs will then be passed on to their clients, who will have to pay extra for fees.

They also have to pay an extra RM40 to get a digital signature to put down on their documents. That too is non-transferable from one lawyer to another.

Next, the lawyers are required to pay up the court fees in full before the system will process their applications.

However, the contracted service provider, Formis, failed to synchronise the online payment to allow a transfer! of fund s between the banks.

Banks do not allow corporate accounts to perform online banking transactions. Only individual account holders can use online banking freely, for example, CIMB clicks and Maybank2U.

And law firm bank accounts are corporate accounts, lawyer Brendan Navin Siva explained to The Malaysian Insider.

As such, lawyers are now still lining up at the court to make the payments by cash."

RM1500 non-transferable digital certificates which are only good for 2 years?

RM40 digital signature which EVERY LAWYER who wishes to file documents under their own name has to have?

There are 13000 lawyers or so. Half of them - about 6500 lawyers - are court-going lawyers who have to file documents in courts. I am not good with Maths. You all do the Maths.

And what's with the failure to synchronise online payments to allow transfer payment between banks? What did they expect? That all lawyers have accounts with ONLY ONE BANK, ie, the 1BANK? And payment from corporate accounts are not acceptable?

Singapore took 8 years to implement their e-filing system. And we wanted to do it with 1 month notice.

Brilliant.

Full story is here.