Ong Hock Thye, PMN, PSM, DPMS, also known as H. T. Ong, was Chief Justice of Malaysia and a Barrister-at-Law of Middle Temple. He was the son of Mr. Ong Teng Up and was born in Penang in 1908. In 1935, he married Chong Khew Yin. In 1943, he married Mary Chung Yuet See, the eldest daughter of Kapitan ChinaChung Thye Phin. He was educated at the King Edward VII School and St. George's Institution in Taiping and the University of London. He was the first ethnic Chinese to be appointed a Supreme Court Judge in Malaysia. He was an advocate and solicitor and practiced in Perak from 1931 till his appointment to the Supreme Court on 1 September 1958. He was Chairman of the Royal Commission on Non-Muslim Marriage and Divorce Laws having been appointed on 4 February 1970 by the Duli Yang Maha MuliaYang di-Pertuan Agong. The other members of his commission comprised Ms P. G. Lim, Enche M. Shankar, Mrs Rosalind Y. C. Foo and DatinJamaki Athi Nahappan. He authored "Law and Justice Through the Cases" which was published in 1973. He was a former Chairman of the Malayan Association of the Blind, Brickfields. He was Chairman of the National Relief Fund set up following the tragic 13 May incident in 1969.
Anecdotes
Right To Be Heard
Tan Sri H.T. Ong—when he was Chief Justice—once stopped Counsel who had just begun to open an appeal and called on Counsel for the Respondent. Counsel for the Respondent began belligerently by saying " Do I understand that my Lord has already made up his mind without hearing the case for the Respondent?" "Oh, no!" said H.T. amiably "please say anything you wish Mr X". He then sat back and said not another word. Counsel for the Respondent soon dried up. Counsel for the appellant was not called on to reply. It is only fair to H.T. who had a brilliant mind, quick to grasp a point but who always gave Counsel his say and listened intently, to say that the Privy Council upheld his judgment in the subsequent appeal.
Chief Justice of Singapore
If not for H. T., Chan Sek Keong, Singapore's Chief Justice, might have taken much longer to enter the legal profession.
In Memory
In 1958, Ong Hock Thye, better and popularly known as H.T. Ong, a member of the Hon. Society of the Middle Temple, made legal history when he and Tan Sri Ismail Khan, a Barrister-At-Law of the Hon. Society of the Middle Temple as well, were the first 2 local private practitioners to be elevated to the Bench of the High CourtStates of Malaya after Independence. H.T.Ong is known for his well crafted judgments and legal prose. He died in 1977.
