'My Distress' application may be extended to other states Read more: 'My Distress' application may be extended to other states

SEREMBAN: The "My Distress" smart phone application recently launched by the Selangor police has received encouraging response and may be extended to other states.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Datuk Seri Khalid Abu Bakar said today that some 30,000 people had registered for the application which enables the public to signal police in emergency situations by pressing an icon.
"If every emergency call through the application is satisfactorily settled by the police, I don't discount the possibility of it being extended to other states.

"Apart from the response of the people, we have to look at the ability of the police to react immediately to a distress call. This is what we are monitoring now," Khalid told reporters at his Aidilfitri open house at Kampung Gebok in Mantin near here.

The application is equipped with the Global Positioning System, enabling police to track the person sending a distress signal. -- BERNAMA


Read more: 'My Distress' application may be extended to other states http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/MyDistress_applicationmaybeextendedtootherstates/Article/#ixzz1Xc8McECR


Taken from New Straits Times Online

Appointment of judges by JAC transparent, says Zaki

KUALA LUMPUR: The appointment of judges and judicial commissioners (JCs) through the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) is “very transparent” since it has been carried out by secret balloting, outgoing Chief Justice Tun Zaki Azmi said.

He said it was very hard to predict the final decision on the selection of judges and JCs by the JAC panel.

“The JAC is more fussy, as all this is done by secret balloting and there are no serial numbers, and you do not know who the panel selects,” he told a news conference after opening a three-day judges conference here yesterday.

Zaki said the panel also took into consideration the judges’ judgments and the backlog of cases before selecting the judges and JCs.

The JAC, which was set up in 2009, comprises former CJs, former senior judges and former attorneys-general as commissioners.

Zaki said that during his three-year tenure as the top judge, six or seven practising lawyers had been appointed judges and JCs.

Asked about allegations that the amendment to the Judges Remuneration Act 1971 in July was to benefit him, Zaki said the allegations were an insult to him.

Zaki said the report that he would get RM2mil as a full pension upon retirement despite having served only a few years in the judiciary was “very annoying”.

He said the pension amendment was not for him but to benefit previous senior judges like former chief justice Tun Salleh Abas, former Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Steve Shim and former Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Mohamad Jemuri Serjan.

At the judges conference, Zaki, in his last speech as the chief justice, said all levels of the judiciary had worked hard to achieve a dramatic reduction in the backlog of cases.

He said he was confident that his successor, Tan Sri Arifin Zakaria, would continue to take the judiciary to greater heights. — Bernama

Taken from The Star Online