The scholarship enabled SUFFIAN to attend Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge University, England, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in 1939 and a Bachelor of Laws in 1940. In January 1941 he was called to the Bar at Middle Temple, London.

On his way back to Malaya at the end of the year he found himself stranded in Colombo, Ceylon, as Japanese armies overran his homeland. The next three years were spent in New Delhi, India, as newscaster, commentator and eventually head of the Malay Unit of All India Radio. The last year of the war he was back in London as Malay sub-editor and language supervisor for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). He believes his work in radio was excellent training for his future years on the bench; on radio he had to learn to write and speak clearly, briefly and to the point.

In 1946, while still in England, SUFFIAN was recruited into the Malayan Civil Service (MCS): "I was the first native officer to be recruited directly into the MCS though I had been turned down previously for that service because I was told, despite being a barrister with two degrees from Cambridge, I had no experience. I was later, also during the war, turned down for the Legal Service for the same reason. "

After the war, however, he was accepted as a member of the MCS, and took a course in public administration given first at Cambridge University and then at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. Classes, designed to prepare him for service as a district officer, ranged from surveying and field engineering to accounting and social anthropology. When he finally returned to Malaya in 1948, however, he was assigned not as a district of officer but as a circuit magistrate, a lower court judge, to the city of Malacca. "I had not touched the law for seven years," he noted, but "thanks to the kind and tactful advice of my clerks and interpreters I soon acquired a rudimentary knowledge of the art of dispensing justice." He was the first Malay to be appointed to such a post.

Besides his excellent university training SUFFIAN brought back from England to Malaya an English bride, Dora (Bunny) Evelina Grange. They had met in 1939 and corresponded while he was in India but they were not married until May 1946.

Becoming a magistrate instead of a district officer was quite a shock, but not the only one in store for him. At the end of his first month on the bench—and after he and his wife had exhausted their savings—he learned that the government had failed to make arrangements to pay him a salary. This oversight was taken care of by appointing him concurrently Harbor Master for the port of Malacca, the only position for which there was a vacancy.

SUFFIAN was officially transferred from the Malayan Civil Service to the Legal Service on January 1, 1949. During the next four years he served as Deputy Public Prosecutor in Kuala Lumpur—where he learned much about the practice of law—and then in Johore Bahru. In 1954 he was briefly Federal Counsel at Kuala Lumpur and then became the first Malayan appointed as Legal Adviser, and later State Secretary, in Pahang, an underdeveloped state on the east coast.

In Pahang SUFFIAN formed ideas about public administration which he incorporated years later in the "Suffian Report," the report of the Special Commission on Salaries for the Civil Service. The commission, which he chaired, was established to revise salaries and conditions of service for the 200,000 government servants. In the report, issued in 1967, SUFFIAN suggested that the government make greater use of its power to dismiss civil servants for inefficiency and suspected corruption. He urged more emphasis be placed on excellence in government service and less on seniority, noting that since the country is constantly encouraged "to do better," public servants should take the lead. This should apply at state as well as federal level.

In 1956 SUFFIAN was assigned as Legal Adviser to the State of Johore and was appointed by the Conference of Rulers—the official body of sultans and governors of the various states—to advise them in drawing up a constitution for the about-to-be independent nation. His work in helping draft the national constitution resulted in his being requested in 1959 by the Sultan of Brunei (an independent Malay state on the island of Borneo) to help draft a constitution for that country.

The constitution for the Federation of Malaya (which became Malaysia in 1963 when the states of Sabah, Sarawak, and briefly Singapore, joined) became the law of the land on August 31, 1957. It recognizes two levels of government, the federal level, presided over by a king chosen for a five year term from among nine ruling sultans, and the state level. Each of today's 13 member states also has its own constitution and is governed by a sultan or a governor, depending upon its political past. Both state and federal governments are served by parliamentary legislatures. The independent judicial system, however, is unitary. With the exception of Muslim religious courts, there are no state courts. Federal courts enforce both federal and state law.

The supreme court of the land is the Federal Court, presided over by the Lord President of Malaysia. On the second level are the High Court of Malaya and the High Court of Borneo (Sabah and Sarawak). These are presided over by Chief Justices who also sit on the Federal Court. Below these are Sessions and Magistrates' courts.

The Lord President and the Chief Justices are assisted on the Federal Court by four other judges appointed to that court. They hear appeals from the two High Courts, including appeals in constitutional disputes. The court normally sits in divisions of three and hears cases on circuit; its usual workload is 18 one-week sessions. The Lord President has overall responsibility for all the courts of Malaysia.

The Chief Justices of the two High Courts have specific responsibility for the lesser courts in their areas. They are assisted by puisne judges, or Judges of the High Court (18 in Malaya; 5 in Borneo). The courts do not sit as units, but the individual judges preside over courts at the various state capitals.

All judges of the Federal and High Courts are appointed by the king, on the advice of the prime minister, and after consultation with the Conference of Rulers. In the case of High Court judges, the sultans or governors of the states for which they are being considered for assignment are always consulted as a matter of courtesy and practical politics. Judges must retire at 65, are entitled to a pension, and cannot be removed from office except by a panel of five of their peers.

The independence, honesty and impartiality of judges is of particular importance in Malaysia which is a multiracial society. The Malays barely equal the total of the two major recent immigrant groups, the Chinese and the Indians, both of whom are economically more advanced than the Malays. As SUFFIAN writes in the Malayan Law Journal, judges must not only be impartial, they must be seen by the public as impartial. They must watch their relationships with the executive branch and with federal public officials in general, he writes, so that they may neither seem to favor government at the expense of the public, nor to be biased toward federal rather than state institutions.

Judges must also be willing to take on the extra duty of serving on commissions where impartiality needs to be guaranteed. SUFFIAN himself has not only served on the Special Commission on Salaries, and the Rulers' Constitutional Advisory Committee, but he has been Co-Chairman of the National Relief Fund Commission (1969-70) and a number of university commissions.

In 1958 SUFFIAN had been appointed senior Federal Counsel, "the youngest and the most senior legal officer in the Legal Service," and in 1959 he became the first Malayan to serve as Solicitor-General. He served in this position until 1961 when he was appointed, at the youthful age of 44, a judge of the High Court of Malaya and assigned to Kuala Lumpur. The following year he was transferred to the state of Kedah.

During these years, 1958-1968, SUFFIAN was also asked to serve his country in the international sphere. In 1958 he was sent as the sole Malayan delegate to the First United Nations Conference on Law of the Sea. He led the delegation to the second such conference in 1960 and visited Tokyo that same year to attend the U.N. Conference on Human Rights. In 1961 he was the Deputy Leader of the Malayan Delegation to the U.N. Conference in Vienna on Diplomatic Immunity, and in 1962 he traveled to Rio de Janeiro to attend a Conference of the International Commission of Jurists. In 1964 he was appointed, concurrently, Pro-Chancellor of the University of Malaya.

The Pro-Chancellor of the University of Malaya is responsible for presiding over the Court and Council of the university and acting in the absence of the chancellor (the Sultanah of Kedah and a former Queen of Malaysia), whose role is advisory and ceremonial. Since the office of chancellor is also largely honorary the pro-chancellor frequently acts for the chancellor.

SUFFIAN has helped guide the university by his wise counsel, "shaping it," as one colleague states, "as the finest academic institution in the country." He has used the occasion of convocation and other university events to expound his ideas on the role of higher education in Malaysia. At a 1970 convocation he urged the University of Malaya and Malaysia's two new universities to eliminate duplication—without smothering healthy rivalry—and to try to find some way to lessen their dependence upon government financing, noting that "there is no true academic freedom without financial independence." Responding to student unrest, he pointed out that academic freedom does not set faculty and student above the law, nor does it give them license "to disrupt harmony and destroy the nation." He pointed out to students that the University of Malaya costs more to operate than most states—M$30.6 million versus M$26.4 million for Negri Sembilan, for example—and that this cost is borne by the country as a whole. "You owe a debt not only to the taxpayer whose money has made it possible for the government to provide schools and universities," he stated. "You owe it mostly to your humble fellow citizens whose poverty, no matter what their racial origin, should be your concern to reduce or eliminate."

To the engineering, economics and science graduates in June 1971 he said that Malaysia needs to turn out enough graduates "with the expertise relevant to our national requirement," but added that the "political cost of producing unemployed and unemployable graduates is more than the political cost of producing too few." The frustrated can easily turn into "dangerous malcontents;" the university should bear this in mind.

He also took this opportunity to suggest that government pension arrangements should be made more flexible so that mobility between government and private sectors would be possible. "I am certain that the private sector can profit from the experience of public servants and government service can profit from the experience of persons from the private sector," but people are reluctant to leave the government because they lose their pension rights, he stated. Some means of carrying pensions over should be studied.

Moreover he chose to point out at this time, as he has on many others, that "cooperation between the communities [racial and religious] is the most valuable instruction which universities can impart."

At convocations in 1973 SUFFIAN advocated more sub-university institutions to produce urgently needed skilled manpower at a sub-professional level. He noted that every engineer the university graduates requires eight technicians to assist him. He also stated his belief that universities have probably overreached their optimum size. A university, he said, should stay small so that students can have an opportunity to know each other and their professors. Such institutions will have fewer problems and the students will experience less frustration. However, he believes that the University of Malaya should develop a graduate center so that students will not be forced to go abroad for postgraduate work.

He further commented that any new university should be sited away from the federal capital (Kuala Lumpur) since universities serve as a catalyst for progress. They provide jobs and offer not only educational, but cultural and sports attractions to the community at large.

As a result of his position and experience as Pro-Chancellor SUFFIAN in 1968 headed the team of experts to draft the constitution of the University of Science in Penang, and in 1969 the committee for drafting the constitution for the new Malay-language university, Universiti Kebangsaan, now moving from Kuala Lumpur to Bangi. From 1972 to 1974 he chaired the important and prestigious Higher Education Advisory Council. He has also been for over 10 years External Examiner in Law for the University of Singapore.

In 1968 SUFFIAN was appointed to the Federal Court, the supreme court of Malaysia, and on November 1, 1973 he was chosen Chief Justice of Malaya, a position in which he had been acting for several months. As Chief Justice he not only heard cases and considered the admission of lawyers to the bar, but was responsible for all lower courts in peninsular Malaysia.

SUFFIAN’s first effort on assuming this new position was to try to reduce the backlog of cases that existed, especially in the outlying courts. He firmly believes in the old adage, "justice delayed is justice denied."

Just two months after his appointment as Chief Justice—January 5, 1974—SUFFIAN was elevated to the highest appointive office in the land, Lord President of Malaysia, a position he will hold until his retirement at age 65.

SUFFIAN’s concerns as Lord President are the same as they have always been: to uphold the law and apply it as justly as humanly possible. He is a "gradualist and traditionalist" who believes that although laws need to be changed to keep up with the changing needs of society, this is not the judge's prerogative. He must interpret the law as it is. He can always point out to the executive branch where laws are no longer valid and hope that the legislature will be persuaded to take action. A judge should be even-handed, he feels, but if he errs it should be on the side of the "small people," rather than on the side of the "big people," including government.

When interviewed about his feelings on appointment to high office, SUFFIAN was quoted as saying that those so fortunate "should not be dazzled by prestige; instead they should be excited by the opportunities that go with high office, service not only in one's particular area, but outside it also." Asked about future goals, SUFFIAN replied that in retirement (in 1982) he would like to "grow bananas and fruit trees and orchids" and write.

The SUFFIANs, who have no children, have a close personal relationship and share a mutual interest in their home in Kuala Lumpur. Bunny Suffian has furnished it with Malayan antiques which she has been collecting in recent years. SUFF—as he is known to his wife and friends—has already planted a garden of coconut and rambutan trees and is busily growing orchids. His interest in orchids is such that he served on the board of the Malayan Orchid Society in 1964-65 in spite of the other demands on his time. He shares his wife's interest in ancient ceramics and has been President of the West Malaysian Chapter of the Southeast Asian Ceramic Society for the past two years.

Another interest is literature. He reads on the average a book a week, a practice he has followed since he left school. "I like books on history—like biography and autobiography," he remarks, "because I think we can learn a lot from the experiences of interesting and successful people." He also reads to improve his own style of exposition.

Writing is a hobby he continues to cultivate. In 1963 he translated the Malayan Constitution from English into Malay, and in 1968 and 1970 he published, respectively, The Legal System of Malaysia and Malaysian Citizenship. In 1972 he published An Introduction to the Constitution of Malaysia. A fellow writer comments, "Humor, conciseness and clarity characterize his books and articles on various aspects of Malaysia's law and administration. He has the rare gift of making a difficult subject simple and interesting."

His wry, gentle humor not only crops up in his writing but in his speech. He uses it to hold an audience, to lighten tension in the court or enliven tedious litigation. One lawyer who has appeared before him notes, "He is liberal and willing to be persuaded, with a colossal memory and a processing mechanism like a computer. All this plus that sense of humor of his—he runs a formidable Bench."

SUFFIAN has received a number of honors from his government, the most recent of which was to be made Tun (the highest title in Malaysia) by the king on June 4, 1975. Earlier awards by the king were the Most Distinguished Order of the Pangkuan Negara (Third Grade) in 1961 and the Most Distinguished Order of Chivalry (Second Grade) in 1967. He received the Most Honorable Order of the Crown of Brunei (Third Class) in 1959 for his help with the Brunei constitution; and the Meritorious Service Medal in 1963 and the Most Honorable Order of the Crown of Pahang (Second Grade) in 1969 from the Sultan of Pahang. He has also been made an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Singapore and an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Malaya, both in 1972. A book about him entitled A Man of His Times: Lord President Tan Sri M. Suffian by J. Victor Morais was published in 1974.

SUFFIAN’s interests have never been parochial and during the course of years he has given his time to organizations which seek to broaden Malaysia's contacts with the rest of the world. He was Chairman for 10 years of the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship Malaysian Nomination Committee, having visited the United States two years earlier as an Eisenhower Fellow himself, and has been President of the Malaysian American Society. He has promoted Commonwealth interests as both Vice President and President of the Oxford and Cambridge Society, Vice Patron of the Malaysian-Sri Lanka Society, and Vice President of the Commonwealth Magistrates' Association. Since 1972 he has been Patron of the Malaysian Students Law Society in the United Kingdom and Eire. And last, but really first, in his younger days he was President of the Malacca Malays Football Association.

A friend has summed up SUFFIAN well: "A simple man, with little patience for pretentiousness, SUFFIAN commands the respect and admiration of all classes in society. As judge, Chief Justice and Lord President, he has been responsible for institutionalizing the rule of law and justice. As a citizen, he has devoted himself without thought of gain or recognition to the furtherance of noble ideals in higher education and the civil service."

Another has written: "In a plural society like Malaysia, governmental institutions have to stride the fears and hopes of the diverse groupings. The positioning of the law in such a multiracial state is crucial to the successful forging of a nation. It is the achievement of MOHAMED SUFFIAN BIN HASHIM that from obscure rural beginnings he rose to become the trusted arbiter, the Solon-figure in the Malaysian multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual nation."

August 1975
Manila

REFERENCES:

Amin, Adibah. ``Judge with the Gentle Touch," Straits Times. Kuala Lumpur. November 4, 1973.

"Avoid Glut of Grads says Suffian," ibid. June 26, 1971.

"Bench, Bar and the Govt. . . ., ibid. February 28, 1975.

"Experts Team," Malay Mail. Kuala Lumpur. N.d.

Kennard, Allington. "From Harbour Master to Lord President," Straits Times. Kuala Lumpur. October 3, 1974.

Leng, Pang Yuet. "Bunny-person ‘With No Fancies,’" ibid. February 19, 1974.

Natarajan, Laksmi "Suffian Is the New Chief Justice, ibid. October 25, 1973.

"Our New CJ," Malay Mail. Kuala Lumpur. October 26, 1973.

"Pro-Chancellor's Life a stirring saga of Inspiration, ibid. September 29,1972.

Suffian, Mohamed. ``Administrative Problems in the Working of superior courts of Justice in Malaysia," The Malayan Law Journal. Singapore. April 1975, p. xi-xiv.

______."Problem of Recruiting and Retaining Lawyers," Straits Times. Kuala Lumpur. February 28, 1975.

______."The Thorny Problem of Duplication," ibid. November 11, 1974.

______."Universities: How Many Should we Have? Ibid. November 9, 1974.

Sugumaran, K. "Remove Those Barriers," ibid. June 22, 1970.

"The Technician Gap," ibid. November 17, 1973.

"Time for Sackings," ibid. October 7, 1969.

"Time to Slow Down the Frantic Pace: Suffian," Sunday Times. Kuala Lumpur. June 21,1970.

Vijandran, D.P. "An Interview with Yang Amat Arif Tun Dr. Mohd. Suffian. . . .," INSAF. Kuala Lumpur: Malayan Bar Council. August 1976, p. 6-23.