As a retired journalist and former court reporter, I applaud senior law correspondent Selina Lum for picking up this judicial gem by Justice Aedit Abdullah (Judge: Drug trafficker who escaped gallows trying to delay caning, June 4).

He was quoted as saying: "Given the absence of any semblance of a shadow of a phantom of a minuscule, ephemeral mote of any merit in the present application, the applicant could not have had any expectation or genuine belief in the possibility of a successful claim."

Judge-speak for "zero, zilch, nada"?

Steve Pivetta