Malaysian judges were sent to an indoctrination "boot camp" and threatened with dismissal to pressure them into making pro-government decisions, a senior judge said.

In explosive allegations made in open court, Justice Ian Chin said he was threatened by former premier Mahathir Mohamad over his handling of high- profile cases, one involving a close associate of the then-leader. "Now, though he is no longer the prime minister and so no longer able to carry out his threat to remove judges, the coalition party that he led is still around," he reportedly said.

Chin made the allegations before hearing a dispute over results of the March general elections in Sarawak state.

He said he was targeted by Mahathir after refusing to award "astronomical" payouts in two libel cases in 1997, while a judge who agreed with the then- premier’s views was promoted to the Federal Court.

Afterwards, Chin reportedly said, he was packed off to a five-day boot camp with selected judges and judicial officers. It was without any doubt "an attempt to indoctrinate those attending the boot camp to hold the view that the government interest is more important than all else when we are considering our judgment," he said.

Bar Council president Ambiga Sreenavasan said the allegations were "both startling and damning." Mahathir stood down in 2003 and his successor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has been criticized for failing to carry out his promises to tackle corruption.

Chin’s allegations add to the pall cast over the country’s judiciary by a recent royal commission into a sensational Mahathir-era video clip that showed a top lawyer brokering judicial appointments with politicians.

Malaysia’s law minister also announced plans to change the constitution to grant more authority to courts after judicial independence was curtailed 20 years ago. Lawyers and opposition leaders say the judiciary has suffered since a constitutional amendment during Mahathir’s rule in 1988 declared that courts would only have powers that parliament specified for them. Meanwhile, with Malaysia’s political environment degenerating into something resembling a food fight, and with protesters in the streets of Kuala Lumpur, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has reiterated his intention to step down at the "right time" to make way for his deputy prime minister, Najib Razak, the Asia Sentinel reports.

A spate of accusations and name-calling and backbiting, particularly between the Badawi forces and those of the former prime minister, Mahathir Mohammad, has virtually stalled the government since disastrous elections for the national front, or Barisan Nasional, on March 8.

Mahathir, who in May loudly resigned from the party he had headed for 22 years, fired back with a wide range of corruption charges against Badawi, including accusations against the prime minister’s son, Kamaluddin Abdullah, who controls Scomi Group, for profiteering by overbuying buses for Kuala Lumpur’s transport system.