Fairuz Tape transcript  – abolish Common Law

(Transcript of Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim media interview on August 21, 2007 after opening the  seminar on the thoughts and academic works of the late Tan Sri Ahmad Ibrahim where he advocated the abolition of Common Law and denied that a Federal Court judge had over 30 unwritten grounds of judgement from High Court days)

Q. Judges having outstanding  grounds of decision. What steps have you taken so far in this matter…

Ahmad Fairuz (A.F.) – Well I had checked and I find that the news that say that a judge of the Federal Court has got 30 grounds of decision not written, that’s definitely  not according to our record. Our record, we do not have such thing. No Federal Court judge has got such big arrears of  grounds of decision to write. We don’t have that in our  record. It is something wrong there…

…  preliminary investigations showed that that particular judge has read his grounds of decision in open court in the year 2002. He had read but I don’t know what happened after that. We got to check. The grounds of decision had been read, yes, the written grounds, he had already written his grounds of decision, he had read it  in open court in 2002, so I am  still checking on it lah…

We have not completed our investigations. The preliminary investigations showed  that the judge had read his  grounds of judgment in the year 2002. So the report is not that right. We have got to check first. I think, you know, it is  very dangerous when we said something which is not the truth. In Islam it’s called fitnah. It is very bad. You don’t say anything which is not the truth. You check first then you say it.

So now I am investigating. I found that the judge had read his grounds of decision already in 2002. There must be something wrong somewhere. So we are investigating into  it now.

Q. What about other judges? Are you looking into overall… …

A.F. – Overall. Overall. We have got records. We have got records with us  as to the judges who have not written grounds of decision. In fact, in the past, judges who have not written grounds of decision have not been promoted until they finished their grounds of decision only then they are being  promoted. Right?

Q. Common Law…

A.F. … Well, Seksyen 3 dan 5 ini. You see, kita punya undang-undang, sekarang ini sejak kita merdeka, Parlimen yang  buat undang-undang kita dan Parlimen ini adalah satu cabang kerajaan, Eksekutif ialah satu lagi cabang kerajaan dan  Judiciary adalah  satu cabang kerajaan dan peranan Judiciary sebagai satu cabang kerajaan ialah untuk mentafsirkan undang-undang yang dibuat oleh Parlimen. So bila Parlimen dah buat undang-undang, lepas itu bila mari  kes depan  mahkamah kalau tidak ada undang-undang yang cover that particular kes for instance kita terpaksa rujuk kepada Common Law England pada tahun 1957. So, that’s it lah. That is the situation. Jadi  Common Law England itu masih lagi terpakai bila Parlimen tak buat undang-undang. Kalau  Parlimen buat undang-undang, Common Law tak pakai.

Cadangan kita, well, I am just suggesting to the seminar, perhaps they  can look into this matter, whether you want to still maintain and keep this position ataupun you  show to the government that we can put another substitute to this method, why go to Common Law? And pulak tu tahun 1957? Ya Tak?

But we cannot do anything, I mean, we are judiciary, we just interpret the law…

My own opinion I think there is no need for us to go to the  Common Law of England now. We have a lot of our pakar undang-undang sekarang ini  yang boleh memberi pendapat masing-masing mengenai undang-undang bagaimana  cara  nak solve undang-undang. Why should we go to Common Law?

Well it is up to the government, badan  executive dan juga  badan legislature untuk menentukan selama 50 tahun kita sudah hidup begitu  kalau tak ada undang-undang yang Parlimen buat, kita rujuk kepada Common Law.

Q. Judicial misconduct …

A.F. – If there is misconduct, there is  the procedure set by the Constitution. We go through the tribunal…

Not providing grounds of judgment is one of the factors lah. Misconduct ini, you know, it is interpretation. What is the meaning  of misconduct? Is writing grounds of decision alone sufficient to say misconduct of a judge?

A person who has been a judge for 13 years, 15 years and only on  one occasion he didn’t write his grounds of decision. Is this misconduct justifying his  removal?

I mean it is common sense…

Show to me, show to me, show me, show me that there have been  people who have been promoted and yet they have so many grounds to write. Show to me.

Because as  I have said before, the judiciary goes on meritocracy. Meritocracy means  not only the merit of the work but you must remember a judge. Judge ni bukan senang. You must see dia punya socialization, you must see dia punya misconduct-ka, his personal life also, the way how he conducts himself,  how he mixes a lot with corporate people, whether he has been  biased  on  so many occasions, whether he is still capable of conducting himself as a good judge, his judicial temperament has declined, so many factors.

As I have said earlier, so many factors are being taken into consideration for a judge to be promoted. Not only the fact that he did not write his grounds of decision, his grounds of decision is one, but whether he has cleared a lot of cases or not, whether his judicial temperament is still maintained very good, he doesn’t shout and yell and shriek at people in public.

So those are the factors. There are some judges who are like that, in the beginning they are very good but later on they turn to be very moody and very highly temperamental. Correct? So that’s the reason why we have the tribunal provision in the Constitution in order to remove such judges. Thank you.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 20 October 2007, 11:42 am and is filed under
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Shame on Zam for hypocrisy and chicanery – hiding  behind Lee Kuan Yew to reject RSF  press freedom index

Shame on Information Minister, Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin in hiding behind Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew to reject the 2007 worldwide press freedom index of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) which saw  Malaysia recording two
“worsts”
 – the sharpest plunge of 32 spots from 92 last year to 124 placing, which is also Malaysia’s worst ranking in the RSF annual worldwide press freedom ranking since it was started in 2002.

It is a public slap in the face of the  Zainuddin as Information Minister as well as the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who had promised to allow greater press freedom in the country that Malaysia has now been given a worldwide press freedom ranking which was even worse than under the era of former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.

However, instead of courageously addressing  the widening  deficit between the promise of greater press freedom and the reality of worse media control and censorship, Zainuddin has decided to outdo himself in his inveterate state of denial, even hiding behind Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew to call on Malaysians to
ignore
 the the RSP press freedom index.

Zainuddin’s chicanery  and hypocrisy were  immediately obvious, for he never had any good word for Kuan Yew before.

Is Zainuddin prepared to be consistent in his current pastime of  singing praises for Kuan yew and support the Singapore Minister Mentor’s endorsement of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI)  which repeatedly listed Singapore among the world’s top five among the least corrupt nations while Malaysia’s CPI ranking had plunged further in the past four years of Abdullah’s premiership — again to a new  low never plumbed during the Mahathir administration!

I have given notice to the Speaker, Tan Sri Ramli Ngah to move a motion of urgent definite public importance in Parliament on  Tuesday on Malaysia’s worst-ever ranking in RSF’s 2007  worldwide press freedom index.

Zainuddin should support  such an urgent debate in Parliament on Tuesday where he could put forward his case for supporting Kuan Yew’s rejection of RSP’s worldwide press freedom index while rejecting Kuan Yew”s endorsement of the Transparency International  Corruption Perception Index.

In my notice of motion to the Speaker, the arguments why there should be a debate of urgent, definite public importance on the 2007 RSF worldwide press freedom index include the following:

“Malaysia scored two ‘worsts’ in the index  — the sharpest plunge  of 32 spots from last year’s 92 to 124 placing, which is also Malaysia’s worst ranking in the RSF annual worldwide press freedom ranking since it was started in 2002.

“Last year, when Malaysia jumped 21 spots to 92nd ranking from the previous year’s 113rd position, there was a lot of self-congratulations in government and mainstream media circles.

“This year, Malaysia cannot make the same claim of scoring higher than all the other Asean countries, as we are behind Cambodia (85) and Indonesia (100) while in the Asia-Pacific region, we are behind  Taiwan (32), Japan (37), South Korea (39), Hong Kong (61),  Timor-Leste (94), Bhutan (116) and  India (120).

“Malaysia’s drop and placing for this year’s RSF 2007 worldwide press freedom index would have been  worse if the shocking development that the Prime Minister does not want to hear the truth from the media and the public had been taken fully into account.

“Malaysia’s worst placing in the RSF 2007 worldwide press freedom index joins a lost list of indicators that all is not right with Malaysia on the occasion of our 50th Merdeka anniversary — a sober reminder  that while we should  be proud  of our national achievements, we have greater reason to be concerned about our many national failings, in particular the failure to honour the Barisan Nasional’s pledge in 2004 general election for openness and reform as well as  the urgent  need for a Freedom of Information Act and to dismantle undemocratic and oppressive laws.”

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 21 October 2007, 10:02 pm and is filed under
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Ahmad Fairuz’ unproductive record as CJ in writing judgments

Both the Lingam  Tape and
Fairuz Tape
scandals were featured in today’s parliamentary proceeding.

On Barisan Nasional MP for Gerik, Datuk Dr. Wan Hashim bin Wan The’s query  during Question Time  on the “overlapping of jurisdiction between the Syariah Court and the Civil Court”, I put in a supplementary question on the Fairuz Tape (tape recording of a media interview by the Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim in August advocating the abolition of the Common Law).

I pointed out that the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz had denied on behalf of Ahmad Fairuz  in Parliament last month that the Chief Justice had made such a proposal, and the Fairuz Tape was proof that Najib had been made use of by the Chief Justice to mislead Parliament on the issue.

I said that if Ahmad Fairuz could lead Nazri to mislead Parliament  in what he had actually said as proven by the Fairuz Tape, the Chief Justice could again mislead Nazri in his second denial that he was the other person at the end of the telephone conversion in the Lingam Tape scandal on the perversion of the course of justice.

In his reply, Nazri gave a new spin to Ahmad Fairuz’ media conference.  Nazri  did not deny the
Fairuz Tape transcript
 but played down its significance claiming that the Chief Justice was pressed by reporters to offer his opinion that there was “no need” for the country to continue with the Common Law!

When I gave a copy of the Fairuz Tape to Nazri outside the Chamber, I stressed that the Chief Justice had sworn to uphold the constitution and he had been unfaithful to his oath of office when he proposed abandonment of a fundamental constitutional principle which was part of the Merdeka social contract, which was one of the charges of judicial misconduct preferred against former Lord President Tun Salleh Abas to justify the establishment of a Judicial Tribunal and his subsequent sacking from the highest judicial post of the land in 1988.

During the continuation of the debate on the 2008 Budget later in the morning, DAP National Chairman and MP for Bukti Glubor, Karpal Singh spoke, focusing on the Lingam Tape and the Chief Justice.

During Karpal’s speech, I intervened three times  to make the following points:

1. That the country is facing a new constitutional crisis   – with  Ahmad Fairuz applying for a six-month extension as Chief Justice from Nov. 1 next month which faces strong opposition not only from  the Malaysian Bar  representing Malaysian lawyers but also various sectors of the Malaysian society, including the Conference of Rulers.

2. I referred to the
Malaysian Bar websi
te listing the reported judgments written by Ahmad Fairuz as compared to his three predecessors, Tun Salleh Abas, Raja Azlan Shah and Tun Mohamad Suffian which placed the current Chief Justice in very poor light for being the  most “unproductive” of the four.

The comparative figures  for Ahmad Fairuz, Salleh Abas, Raja Azlan and Mohd Suffian for written judgments are as follows:

*Table courtesy of
Bar Council
.

3. The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should be mindful of the strong and valid objections to  the extension of Ahmad Fairuz’s tenure as Chief Justice from Nov. 1, especially with the latest Lingam Tape scandal that Ahmad Fairuz was the person at the end of the telephone conversation on  the perversion of the course of justice, and should not court a new constitutional crisis over the extension of Ahmad Fairuz as Chief Justice.

4. Although it is a month since the Lingam Tape was made public by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Ahmad Fairuz, senior lawyer V.K. Lingam and Cabinet Minister Tengku Adnan, the trio  implicated in the Lingam Tape allegations concerning the perversion of the course of justice have not only failed to issue any direct denial but also have not lodged any police report despite the fact that the allegations are serious crimes of sedition if untrue.

5. That the threat  by the Anti-Corruption Agency to charge  and prosecute Anwar Ibrahim, R. Sivarasa and Sim Tze Tze if they fail to reveal the source and produce  the entire Lingam Tape appeared to be part of a  “cover-up” of the Lingam Tape scandal instead of a full investigation into the perversion of the course of justice which had brought public confidence in the independence and integrity of the judiciary to a new low.

6. That in keeping with the principle of judicial accountability, a full report should be presented in Parliament on the judges who have arrears of long-standing grounds of decision which had not been delivered — in view of the recent expose of a Federal Court judge who had over 30 outstanding grounds of decisions from his High  Court tenure which had not been delivered.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 22 October 2007, 4:08 pm and is filed under
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His Hollowness The Imam of Islam Hadhari

by M. Bakri Musa

You can tell much about a creed by its practices, in particular that of its leader.  By this measure, Islam Hadhari is a cruel hoax perpetrated by Abdullah Badawi on the citizens.  This recently concluded Ramadan was Abdullah’s fifth as Prime Minister.  On none of those occasions did he see fit to live or demonstrate the spirit of generosity and forgiveness that is the hallmark of Ramadan.

            During the tenure of Mahathir, as well as others before him, it was traditional for the King on the advice of his Prime Minister to pardon prisoners during the last days of Ramadan, in time for them to join their families for Eid celebrations.  We had the writer and philosopher Kassim Ahmad as well as the scholar Syed Hussin Ali, prisoners of conscience under the ISA, thus released.  My classmate, once a fast rising star in UMNO and a former cabinet minister, was also pardoned of his murder conviction and released.

            Abdullah has had five Ramadans to demonstrate the generosity or magnanimity of his Islam Hadhari.  He missed them all.  Equally significant, during the recent 50th Merdeka Anniversary, Abdullah did not see fit to have any amnesty program for prisoners.  Nor did he have one on assuming power.

            In his typically sermonizing Hari Raya message he exhorted Muslims to be generous and gracious.  That was as far as he went; nothing beyond dispensing homilies.

            On closer scrutiny, there was nothing in the ten stated principles of his Islam Hadhari about generosity or charity.  How foolish of me to assume that the “Islam” of Islam Hadhari would at least have some redeeming qualities like charity, a pillar of our great faith!

            Abdullah’s idea of generosity during this last Hari Raya was to host a multi-million ringgit “Open House” at the Putra World Trade Center.  Rest assured that the funding of this mega bash would come out of the public treasury.  It is easy to spend or give away money when it is not yours.

            During this past Ramadan, Abdullah hosted an
iftar
, (communal breaking of the fast) and then proceeded to lead his guests in the obligatory
Maghreeb
 as well as the optional
Taraweekh
 prayers.  A more gracious (and modest) host would have had some other ulama or ustaz from among the guests to do the honors.  Not Abdullah, he hogs it all, in the name of piety and humility (or his public demonstrations thereof).  His version, that is.

            On another occasion, this time with members of the media (only those with demonstrated sycophantic sentiments), he had the writer and political observer Syed Hussein Alattas (Pak Habib) partake in a simple meal of
ubi rebus
(soup of tuber roots), a cheap staple made infamous during the hard days of the Japanese occupation.  The normally perceptive and critical Pak Habib was so taken up by Abdullah’s “humble ” gesture that Pak Habib gushed at the “humility” of the Prime Minister.

            This was nothing more than a crude and ineffective attempt at “slumming” for the benefit of the members of the media to see and thus report.  You can bet that no such soup would be served on board the newly acquired luxurious RM200 million corporate jet reserved for Abdullah’s use.

            The normally “not-easily-bought” Pak Habib, a political commentator I admire greatly, went so far as to have his picture taken with the “humble” Prime Minister clad in his peasant-style sarong and modest
baju Melayu
.  The snap shots of the duo affectionately embracing each other were of course emblazoned on his website.  The independently wealthy and fiercely unconventional Pak Habib could not be had with flattery or money, but a simple
ubi rebus
did it!

He Did Not See as Head of OIC

Thanks to the efforts and international stature of his predecessor, Abdullah assumed the leadership of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) on becoming Prime Minister.  While Mahathir was forceful in pursuing the interests of Islam and of Islamic nations in foreign forums, Abdullah has been busy maintaining his so-called “elegant silence” abroad.

            His presence at the recently concluded UN General Assembly was hardly noticed, except of course by the Malaysian media.  Consequently and by default, the world now increasingly views Islam and Muslims as represented by such crackpots as Iran’s Ahmadnejad.

            As head of OIC, he is silent over the two continuing major tragedies occurring in the Muslim world — the American occupation of Iraq, and the horrifying human sufferings in Darfur.  His silence reflects indifference.  It is a measure of his callousness to human sufferings, just as he is indifferent to the fate of the many prisoners of conscience in his own country.  That again reflects his understanding of Islam, and the guiding principles of his Islam Hadhari.

            Closer to home, Abdullah is equally oblivious of the atrocities perpetrated by Myanmar’s thuggish military junta.  As the self-proclaimed Imam of Islam Hadhari, I would have expected him to have some modicum of sympathy for the brutal oppression of those fellow leaders of faith, the monks.  Alas, there was none.

            In secular America, President Bush and other senior leaders have to declare publicly their income tax returns.  From such disclosures the public gets to know how much these leaders have contributed to charity.  It turned out that both Bush and others had contributed generously.  God bless them!

Zakat
 (charity) is a major pillar of Islam.  Although not specifically stated in its ten major principles, I would expect that Islam Hadhari too would emphasize charity.  If Abdullah could afford to vacation regularly in Turkey and Australia, as well as host a multimillion ringgit Hari Raya bash, I wonder how much this Imam has donated for his
zakat
 this year?

            Abdullah and others have been busy proclaiming Malaysia to be an Islamic State.  Let’s begin with that basic prerequisite of Islam:  making all Muslims give their fair share of zakat.  Once we have achieved that, we can then consider implementing the other rules of the Syaria.

            Islam Hadhari notwithstanding, one thing is certain under Abdullah’s leadership.  The rats that are his cronies and family members have been busy nibbling away at the state’s precious assets.  With time all that would be left is a state treasury that resembles Swiss cheese, full of holes with only a thin crust to hold its shape.  This is what happens when we have as chief executive a
kaki tidor
 (sleepy head), or to pursue my metaphor, a cheese head (
kepala kosong
— empty head).

            No toast to His Hollowness The Imam of Islam Hadhari.  Instead, let him be toast.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 22 October 2007, 9:01 am and is filed under
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Open Letter to Ahmad Fairuz – withdraw application for 6-mth extension and support RCI

I am calling this media conference to issue an Open Letter to the Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim that for the national interest and to restore public confidence in the  judiciary, he should withdraw his application for six-month extension on his retirement at the end of the month and to give full support for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Tape.

This is my Open Letter to Tun Ahmad Fairuz:

Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim,

Chief Justice of Federal Court,

Malaysia.

Dear Tun,

Withdraw application for six-month extension and give full support for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Lingam Tape and to restore public confidence in the judiciary

I am taking this unprecedented step of issuing this Open Letter to ask you to act in the national interest and to restore public confidence in the  judiciary by withdrawing  your  application for six-month extension on your due retirement at the end of the month and to give full support for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Tape.

Such an action on your part will avert a new constitutional crisis over your controversial application for a six-month extension as well as a new crisis of confidence in the judiciary.

Former Lord President Sultan Azlan Shah in his postscript to his book
“Constitutional Monarchy, Rule of Law and Good Governance”

(pp 399 — 401)
 in April 2004 had written:

“Sadly, over the past few years there has been some disquiet about the judiciary. Several articles have been written, and many opinions expressed, both internationally and locally, that the independence of our judiciary has been compromised.  It has been said that there has been an erosion of public confidence in our judiciary.

“Concerns have been expressed that some judges were not writing judgments, or that there were long delays in obtaining decisions or hearing dates in certain instances. Further, the conduct of certain judges was being questioned in public…

“Whether these allegations are true, is not for me to say.  However, having been a member of the judiciary for many years, it grieves me when I hear of such allegations.  Since Independence, the early judges have always cherished the notion of an independent judiciary and had built the judiciary as a strong and independent organ of government. The public had full confidence of the judiciary and accepted any decision then made without any question. Unfortunately, the same does not appear to be the case in recent years.

“Whatever the situation, a judiciary may only be said to be independent if it commands the confidence of the public — the very public it seeks to serve.  After all, statements made as to its independence by the judges, or even the politicians, do not measure public confidence in the judiciary. At the end of the day, it is this public perception that ultimately matters.

“It is my earnest hope that the Malaysian judiciary will regain the public’s  confidence, and that it will once again be held in the same esteem as it once was held.  In democratic countries, it is an independent judiciary that brings pride to the nation.  Members of the executive and the legislature come and go, but an independent judiciary must remain steadfast forever, fulfilling the aspirations and ideals of the people. In the judiciary, people place their trust and hope.”

Sultan Azlan Shah’s critique of the parlous state of the judiciary is even more pertinent today than when he wrote it  in April 2004,  with the entire period falling your  term  as Chief Justice — a powerful reason why Tun should avert a constitutional crisis and a new crisis of confidence over the judiciary over the controversial application for a six-month extension.

Yesterday, the
Bar Council website
carried the following  comparative data on the number of reported judgments written by the current Chief Justice, and his three predecessors, Tun Salleh Abas, Raja Azlan Shah (as HRH then was) and Tun Mohamed Suffian when they sat at the High Court, Court of Appeal and the apex court.

Without having to go into these comparative figures which reflects adversely on Tun, or the latest crisis of confidence ensuing from the Lingam tape scandal, the words of Sultan Azlan Shah reminding all that public confidence in the judiciary in the past 55 months when Tun had been Chief Justice had not only failed to improve so that “it will once again be held in the same esteem as it once was held”  but had significantly taken a turn for the worse should be sufficient ground for Tun to save the country from another bout of a twin crisis of the constitution and public confidence in the judiciary.

I have forwarded a copy of this Open Letter to Ahmad Fairux c/o office of  Chief Justice of the Federal Court, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz.

(Media Conference Statement in Parliament on Tuesday, 23rd October 2007)

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 October 2007, 12:37 pm and is filed under
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Mat Rempit lawlessness – time for PM to give personal attention to end menace

The Parliamentary Caucus on Human Rights and Good Governance has received a complaint from the latest victim of Mat Rempits —
Manjit Sokhai
, 43, a Canadian consultant from Montreal who comes to Malaysia three to four times a year in connection with his work.

Manjit was driving his four-wheel drive along Jalan Rasah, Seremban at about 11pm on Saturday Oct 20, with three friends from India when he was confronted by some 40 Mat Rempits on motorcycles, who assaulted him and went on to damage his vehicle, smashing the rear lights, wipers and number plate.

Manjit is here and he will give you his traumatic encounter with the Mat Rempits.

Mat Rempits going on a rampage, causing harm to innocent people and property, has become too common an occurrence.

These were some of the reports in the mass media in the past two months on  Mat Rempit rampage and violence in the country:

1.	Merdeka celebrations took a nasty turn at Dataran Hadhari, Teluk Batik, Perak early 1st September 2007 when some Mat Rempits reacted violently against the police by wrecking one patrol car and breaking the rear window of another. This happened at 1.30am when a police inspector tried to detain a man, sparking angry protests from more than 100 Mat Rempits, who surrounded the police car, kicked  its doors and ripped off the radio antenna.  The police officer escaped  unharmed.

2.	A senior citizen, Yusoff Abdullah, 69, was knocked and killed by a Mat Rempit in Pasir Tumboh, Kota Bharu early morning on 8th September. The Mat Rempit who hit Yusoff, Ahmad Fuad Ariffin, 19 also died on the spot.

3.	Two Mat Rempits who were not happy with police having a  road block attacked Merbok Police Station in Sungai Petani with petrol bombs at about 1am, 27th August 2007. Nobody was injured.

4.	A group of ten Mat Rempits turned violent and attacked a police car and a few policemen in Jalan Raja Laut, Kuala Lumpur, a Mat Rempit favourite spot early on the night of 30th September 2007. When they were blocked by the traffic police, they turned violent and attacked the police before leaving.

5.	Mohd Fairus Abdul Aziz, 21, a restaurant worker was killed after he fell from his motorcycle in Jalan Tun Razak near the US Embassy where he  was surrounded and kicked by five  Mat Rempits at about 5:40 am on 11th October 2007. Fairus was about to send her girl friend home after work when he was surrounded by the Mat Rempits who wanted to take her girl friend away.

6.	Wan Asmadi Wan Ahmad, 36, a senior officer from Road Transport Department Enforcement Unit was hit by a Mat Rempit in an Ops Sikap XIII operation in Jalan Sultan Idris Shah, Ipoh at about 10:15 pm on 21st October 2007. His legs were broken and he suffered serious head  injuries.

These are some of the reported cases, which is only the tip of the iceberg of the fear they created among the peace-loving and law-abiding Malaysians, as well as visitors with their lawlessness and contempt for the rights and safety of others.

It is deplorable that the Mat Rempit menace has been allowed to continue without a political will to resolve it, further aggravated by the patronage which some influential personalities in power have accorded to Mat Rempits for their own political agenda.

The culture of contempt for the law and impunity for the lawlessness of Mat Rempits have gone on for too long and the Parliamentary Caucus on Human Rights and Good Governance calls on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who is also Internal Security Minister, to give his personal attention to wipe out the Mat Rempit menace subverting law and order, creating fear among Malaysians and visitors about their personal safety and giving the country a bad name internationally.

The Prime Minister must be reminded that a national situation where Mat Rempit lawlessness and violence are  rife and rampant is not only a  threat to the safety and security of Malaysian citizens, but  would drive away investors, tourists and foreign students.

How can the government expect to succeed in making Malaysia an investment centre, a tourist haven or an international hub of academic excellence to attract foreign students when the government is incapable performing its most fundamental duty — to ensure the personal safety and security of its citizens and visitors?

(Media Conference Statement in Parliament on Wednesday, 24th October 2007)

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 24 October 2007, 12:13 pm and is filed under
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Ahmad Fairuz’ extension will provoke new firestorm of protests – Abdullah should submit nominee for new CJ to Rulers’ Conference

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should be fully aware that any extension of the tenure of Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim as Chief Justice from next month, whether for six or two months, will provoke  a new firestorm of nation-wide  protests from lawyers, the civil society and Malaysians, plunging the new crisis of confidence in the judiciary which had haunted the nation for the past month  because of the Lingam Tape scandal, to its nadir.

It would mean that Abdullah would have a judicial crisis of confidence which is not inherited from the previous Mahathir era, but a complete product of the Abdullah premiership.

Abdullah should avert such a controversy by submitting a nominee as new Chief Justice to succeed Fairuz to the Conference of Rulers next week.

Ahmad Fairuz’ position  as an outstanding Chief Justice has not been helped by recent revelation of his poor record in writing judgments, with only four reported judgments in his name in his four years seven months as Chief Justice, —  i.e. less than one judgment per year!

Ahmad Fairuz’  poor record of written judgments  as revealed by the
Malaysian Bar website
—  seven judgments in his seven years a High Court judge, 35 judgments in five years  as Court of Appeal judge and seven judgments in seven years  as Federal Court judge — raises many disturbing questions about his judicial performance, including how a High Court judge who had only a record of seven judgments in seven years  could be promoted to the Court of Appeal.

It will make nonsense of judicial accountability, integrity and quality if Ahmad Fairuz could get an extension as Chief Justice after a long list of judicial misconduct and failure of judicial leadership in his 55 months as the highest judicial officer of the land, whether his “silence” on the Lingam Tape scandal on the perversion of the course of justice concerning fixing of judicial appointments and judicial decisions; the proposal for the abolition of the English common law and most important of all, his failure to build on the efforts of his predecessor Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah to restore national and international confidence in the independence, integrity and quality of the judiciary  to the international respect and esteem enjoyed under the most distinguished and prestigious  Lord Presidents such as Tun Suffian, Tun Raja Azlan Shah and Tun Saleh Abas.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 25 October 2007, 3:10 pm and is filed under
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Insensitive, ignorant, deplorable and abhorrenst attack on the Disabled (OKU)

The three protests by Peter Tan (Independent Living Programme for People with Disabilities), Assoc Prof Dr. Tium Linga Ta (Society for  the Orthopaedically Disabled) and Bathmavathi Krishnan (Malaysian Spinal Injuries Association) in the

Letters’ Page
in the New Straits Times today  represents not only the views of the disabled community but all decent and right-thinking Malaysians.

As
Peter Tan
wrote:

AS a wheelchair user for the last 23 years, I am absolutely upset with Jerai member of parliament Datuk Badruddin Amiruldin for telling fellow-MP Karpal Singh that the latter’s use of a wheelchair is a punishment from God (“Kar-pal: Lawyer wrote part of judgment for civil suit” — NST, Oct 23).

Badruddin’s remark is an affront to all wheelchair users, implying that our condition is a punishment and that we are all sinners.

I have been using a wheelchair long enough to have experienced many times such drivel from holier-than-thou people. People must be educated that being disabled is one of the things that can happen to anybody. People can become disabled. People can become afflicted with diseases. It is part of life.

Perhaps Badruddin seldom meets wheelchair users. As an MP, he should turun padang and meet his electorate to realise that they include disabled people, some of whom are wheelchair users.

He should be working towards empowering disabled people instead of insulting us. After all, he was elected to serve the people and not otherwise.

Although Badruddin is no stranger to uncouth statements,  he must be condemned in the strongest possible terms for his latest insensitive, ignorant, deplorable, despicable and abhorrent remark, insulting not only Karpal, the disabled community (OKU) but the august Parliament in bringing it to new depths of public shame.

If Badruddin refuses to retract his insensitive, offensive and derogatory remark, trespassing the bounds of common decency, there should be a nation-wide condemnation which should also  demand that Barisan Nasional MPs dissociate themselves from Badruddin’s despicable statement.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 25 October 2007, 4:22 pm and is filed under
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Sudden flurry of ACA activities – just intensified pre-election  PR as 4 yrs ago?

There has been a sudden flurry of Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) activities — with the ACA Director-General Datuk Ahmad Said Hamdan courageously declaring: “We do not discriminate.
Small fry or big fish
, we will go after them if they are corrupt”.

This was on the same day that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi visited the ACA and after a “brief meeting” with its top management and state directors,   publicly
praised
the ACA for a job well done, with the following summing-up by  Ahmad: “He (the Prime Minister) said he thought we were doing a good job, he is happy, and wants us to continue doing our best.”

There has been a sudden flurry of ACA activities in the past few days  — but is this evidence of new ACA independence to root out corruption or just intensified PR (Public Relations) and replay of the high-profile  pre-election anti-corruption action four years ago which fizzled into nothing?

In a week’s time, Abdullah will be completing his fourth year as the fifth Prime Minister of Malaysia.

The high hopes which Abdullah had raised among Malaysians to initiate government reforms and wipe out corruption are still fresh in the minds of the people.

When Abdullah became Prime Minister, the country was told that 18 high-profile personalities — the ikan yu (sharks) – would be arrested and prosecuted but four years later, not a single high-profile personality had been brought to justice, while  most of the 18 “ikan yu” have escaped and are swimming merrily in the South China Sea.

If it is true that Abdullah had given the ACA
“a pat on the back for a job well done”
, then what was it that Abdullah was happy about the track record of the ACA in the past four years to wipe out corruption?

Is it because the National Integrity Plan launched by Abdullah in May 2004 had been such a failure, as its five-year objective to improve Malaysia’s  ranking  of Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from No. 37 in 2003  to at least No. 30 next year had suffered even worse reverses, plunging to even worse rankings than during the previous administration of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad — i.e. No. 44 in 2006 and No. 43 in 2007?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 25 October 2007, 1:19 pm and is filed under
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Abdullahs’ 4th anniversary as PM – marked by constitutional crisis with no CJ after Nov. 1?

The question uppermost in many minds is whether the fourth anniversary of Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi next week will be marked by his biggest constitutional crisis with the country without a Chief Justice for the first time in 50 years.

It is open secret that the application by Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim for a six-month extension as Chief Justice from November 1 has catapulted the country to the precipice of a national crisis, as it is not only opposed by the Bar Council and the civil society but also by the Conference of Rulers.

In his 55 months as Chief Justice, Ahmad Fairuz had chalked up a catalogue of failures of judicial leadership, particularly:

	His  failure to build on the efforts of his predecessor Tun Abdullah Dzaiddin  take the country to another critical  level to restore national and international confidence in the independence, integrity and quality of the judiciary in the tradition of the three distinguished Lord Presidents of the country, Tun Suffian, Tun Raja Azlan Shah and Tun Saleh Abas;

	His mishandling of  the appointment of a new Chief Judge of Malaya to succeed Tan Sri Siti Normah Yaakob on 5th January 2007 after a six-month extension, resulting in a seven-month stand-off with the Conference of Rulers and a most deplorable situation where the country was left without a proper and lawful Chief Judge of Malaya for over seven months;

	His embroilment in the Lingam Tape scandal to the extent that the Chief Justice has become a “fugitive” from the media and the public, with the Hari Raya party of the judicial and legal service  yesterday declared completely “off-limits” for the media just because the Chief Justice was attending and was afraid to be asked questions about his role and involvement in the Lingam Tape scandal!

There can be three scenarios after the meeting of the Conference of Rulers on Wednesday and Thursday:

	Ahmad Fairuz extended as Chief Justice, whether for six or two months from Nov. 1;

	A new Chief Justice appointed from Nov. 1; and

	No Chief Justice from Nov. 1, because of the constitutional deadlock with the Conference of Rulers raising objections to the application for extension by Ahmad Fairuz.

Will Ahmad Fairuz precipitate a second constitutional deadlock, first over the appointment of Chief Judge of Malaya and now over the Chief Justice, with Abdullah dragged into a second  constitutional crisis because of failure of leadership of the Prime Minister?

I must remind the Prime Minister in the strongest possible terms that any extension of the tenure of Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim as Chief Justice from next month, whether for six or two months, will provoke  a new firestorm of nation-wide  protests from lawyers, the civil society and Malaysians, plunging the new crisis of confidence in the judiciary which had haunted the nation for the past month  because of the Lingam Tape scandal, to its nadir.

This  is a option Abdullah  should reject in favour of appointing a new Chief Justice whose biggest challenge must be to restore national and international confidence in the Malaysian judiciary after nearly two decades of degradation and devastation of the judicial landscape.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 26 October 2007, 1:22 pm and is filed under
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Haris Ibrahim, well done!

Well done,
Haris Ibrahim
 of
The People’s Parliament
, for his initiative in launching and submitting 5,036 signatures to the Yang di Pertuan Agong in his online petition for royal intervention for the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Tape scandal on the perversion of the course of justice implicating the Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz  Sheikh Abdul Halim.

Haris, one of the country’s most distinguished human right advocates,
submitted
 the petition with the  signatures  to the Istana Negara at 10.35 am this morning — exceeding the 5,000-signature target he had set.

Haris had wound up the signature petition earlier than expected in view of the meeting of the Conference of Rulers on Wednesday, 31st October 2007.

However, Malaysians who wish to support the

“Save The Judiciary”
 online petition can still do so as Haris is prepared to submit a second batch of signatures before the Conference of Rulers meeting — giving a three-day window for a final push for the campaign.

As Haris told the Malaysiakini:

“If there are sufficient signatures, we’ll deliver them to His Majesty’s office so that more Malaysians can express their concerns to the monarch”.

Those who have not endorsed the

“Save the Judiciary”
 online petition should do so immediately.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 26 October 2007, 5:46 pm and is filed under
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Zam – Info Minister under coconut shell or bidding to be Mat Rempit “Godfather”?

Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin has provided proof that he runs the Information Ministry like a frog  under the coconut shell blissfully unaware that in  the era of globalization and international competitiveness   Malaysia cannot turn a blind eye to complaints, whether by Malaysians or foreigners, about misgovernance.

I am  astounded  that the former veteran journalist could be so mischievous and irresponsible as to issue a formal statement yesterday accusing me of acts akin to being “anti-national” for bringing a foreigner to Parliament “to express his views on the democratic and  security system in the country”.

He said such things would not have happened in any other country, especially when the case mentioned was still under police investigation .

Zainuddin cannot be more wrong. I have no doubt that in developed countries which Malaysia aspires to become in 2020, using the Parliament to ventilate the grievances of nationals and foreigners in the country  would be common occurrence and would not be the subject of any official comment.

What would be eye-raising is having the Information Minister  of the country disgracing himself, Parliament and the nation by making myopic and xenophobic statements as if foreigners have no rights in the country and Malaysia has no duty and responsibility to protect the safety and security of foreign tourists, visitors and professionals working as consultants in the country.

Let me clarify from the outset that the Canadian consultant, Manjit Sokhai did not come to Parliament on Wednesday “to express his views on the democratic and security system in the country” but to  complain to the Parliamentary Caucus on Human Rights and Good Governance about the menace of Mat Rempitism, of which he was the most recent victim.

Manjit , 43, from Montreal visits  Malaysia three to four times a year in connection with his work.  He  was driving his four-wheel drive along Jalan Rasah, Seremban at about 11pm on Saturday Oct 20, with three friends from India when he was confronted by some 40 Mat Rempits on motorcycles, who assaulted him and went on to damage his vehicle, smashing the rear lights, wipers and number plate.

The purpose of Wednesday media conference in Parliament was for Manjit to recount to the media his traumatic experience with the Mat Rempits, a menace to the safety and security not only  of Malaysians but also foreign visitors and tourists.

I cited the recent crimes  of Mat Rempitism, including murder, where even police and road transport officials had become victims, and called on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to give his personal attention to wipe out the Mat Rempit menace subverting law and order, creating fear among Malaysians and visitors about their personal safety,  giving the country a bad name internationally and undermining Malaysia’s international competitiveness.

It is most shocking that instead of giving support, Zainuddin has chosen to take the side of the Mat Rempits.

Is Zainuddin  as  Information Minister a frog  under the coconut shell blissfully unaware that we are  in  the era of globalization and international competitiveness   or is he making a bid to be a Godfather of Mat Rempits in the run-up to the Umno annual general assembly next month?

In his statement yesterday, Zainuddin was again guilty of “misinformation” when he made baseless allegations against DAP MPs. He said:

“Previously, they had brought two Chinese nationals who claimed that they were victims of the police in one case, but it was later proven that they had cheated the people of this country.  They were not linked to the case as claimed and they had used the opposition to exaggerate the case.”

I challenge Zainuddin to substantiate this allegation, and if he cannot do so, to retract his statement and tender a public apology.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 26 October 2007, 10:24 am and is filed under
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Cold-blooded killing of two cops, Jayabalan and Alagesan, condemned by all Malaysians

Malaysians are shocked and revolted by the
cold-blooded killing
 of two police inspectors, L/Kpl K. Jayabalan from the Gombak police and detective L/Kpl M. Alagesan from the city police headquarters during a drug bust  in Sungai Buloh on Thursday night and the killers must be hunted down and brought to justice.

Deepest condolences to the families of  the two cops who died in the course of duty. It is both an outrage and tragedy that their families will be grieving instead of having a Deepavali  celebration in a fortnight’s time.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also Internal Security Minister,  said the deaths of the two police officers during the drug raid could have been
avoided
if the police  had adopted a proper strategy and  followed procedures.

The avoidable death of two police officers cannot be taken lightly, and if the Prime Minister is right, then there should be a full inquiry as to why the correct strategy and procedures had not been followed and who were responsible for such negligence resulting in the unnecessary sacrificing of two cops.

Parliament and the nation are entitled to know what lessons are being learnt if the deaths of the two police inspectors were the cause of avoidable negligence and sloppiness on the part of the police  in carrying out a drug bust — and what measures the government and the police are taking to help the two bereaved families who are afflicted with the  irreplaceable losses.

The Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan blamed the two deaths on the police not having enough bullet-proof vests for his men during special operations and patrols and that  that he would be requesting an allocation from the government to buy more bullet-proof vests for the police.

If Musa is right, then this is another outrage where the lives and safety of police are unnecessarily exposed to danger because of not enough bullet-proof vests for police carrying out high-risk duties while the government, including the police force itself, squanders astronomical sums of public funds every year not only for non-essential purposes, but through corruption, criminal breach of trust and a litany of malpractices.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 27 October 2007, 1:31 pm and is filed under
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Don’t create new CJ crisis with appointment of first  Umno CJ in 50 years

There is growing concern that to avoid a grave constitutional crisis that will erupt with the extension of Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim as Chief Justice after Nov. 1, the country may be plunged to another equally grave crisis of confidence in the independence and integrity of the judiciary  — the appointment of an UMNO Chief Justice for the first time in the 50-year history of Malaysia, namely Tan Sri Zaki Tun Azmi.

The appointment of Zaki as Federal Court Judge in early September, which involved an unprecedented “triple jump” without first serving as judge of High Court and Court of Appeal, was the first in the nation’s 50-year history, raising the question whether the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was paving the way  to appoint Zaki as a future Chief Justice.

Nobody questions the legal qualifications and capabilities of Zaki but there are many legitimate questions as to the suitability of his judicial appointment, in particular as Chief Justice.

Is the country going to start the second half-century of nationhood with an UMNO Chief Justice, when for five decades, there had never been any judge who could be said to be an Umno judge in terms of his party membership and  his long services to Umno as a political party.

For the past 22 years, Zaki was an active Umno member and lawyer, representing Umno in many controversial and even dubious Umno cases, culminating variously as head of Umno legal advisor, head of Umno disciplinary committee panel and in 2001 as  Deputy Chairman of Umno Disciplinary Board of Appeal.

Is Zaki still an Umno member?  If he had resigned from Umno, when did he resign from Umno?

Even if Zaki had resigned from Umno, at a time when the greatest challenge of the judiciary is to restore national and international confidence in the independence and integrity of the judiciary after two decades of erosion and devastation, will Zaki’s further elevation in the judiciary to become the Chief Justice be  conducive to such an uphill task which had been the bane of Malaysia’s  world standing and international competitiveness?

After his appointment to the Federal Court in early September, Zaki said that he was given less than 24 hours to decide whether he would accept the appointment, and he  described it as a “national service”.

What is even more important is whether public perception, both national and international, will regard it more as “Umno service” rather than “national service”.

In the circumstances, it would be a major faux pas of the Prime Minister to plunge the country from one judicial crisis of confidence to another, re-opening anew the urgency for the establishment of a Judicial Appointments and Promotions Commission to remove extraneous considerations and factors  in judicial appointments which could only undermine public confidence in the judiciary.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 27 October 2007, 12:28 pm and is filed under
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Firefly and Subang

Letter

by Z. Ibrahim

It is said sometimes that there are only two categories of people in this world. Employers and employees, entrepreneurs and wage seekers, risk takers and non-risk takers.

Employees in general are content with salaries and allowances commensurate with their experience, qualifications and working hours.

Entrepreneurs however, take huge risks by actually starting a new entity or business which generally requires workers and capital outlay. Entrepreneurs are greatly respected in open markets such as the United States. Malaysia had a similar tradition which included the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong.

The long drawn out silent battle to acquire Subang as an air terminal between Air Asia and MAS was plain to everyone. Which carrier should the government support? Neither.  Only the market must be allowed to determine who prevails or survives.

If Subang is to be changed again to an air terminal, every airline including both Air Asia and MAS must be given a go at it. To sneakily allow MAS’s Firefly to operate from Subang on the basis that its turbo-prop planes are environmentally friendly to residents around the airport is to encourage a lop-sided policy of quiet favoritism, possibly because the government has a share in MAS.

This would be sending the wrong signal to venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, investors and FDIs.This inequality may translate into businesses and capital running out of the country.

The Government must realise that this is no more the old days of the controlled media  but the age of information where the public easily acquire information through the net and are quite well informed. The government must play the strict referee and where possible, keep out of business.

KLIA, may or may not have been a mistake. Time will tell. Its greatest disadvantage is its distance from KL which can be overcome by placing a cost-effective LRT as in Heathrow. The government must endeavour to ensure that this is achieved.

As much as every player in the airline industry wants Subang because of its proximity to the large Klang Valley market, access to it, if provided, must be done fairly.

If we are to compete for investments and other FDIs, the government must inevitably indulge in cricket and do away with unlevel playing fields.

To do otherwise would be to perilously indicate to investors, both local and foreign, that their investments and money may not be safe in an arena of shifting goalposts.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 27 October 2007, 1:17 am and is filed under
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Transport
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Apology from PM Abdullah to 106  Ops Lalang ISA detainees

At this hour  on this day 20 years ago, Lim Guan Eng, who had been elected  Member of Parliament for Kota Melaka for just a year, had already been detained as the first of 106 detainees representing a wide spectrum of dissent, including MPs, civil rights leaders, Chinese educationists and social activists in the Operation Lalang mass arrests under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

By this hour 20 years ago, Karpal Singh and I had also been detained,  when together with other DAP MPs we  went to the  High Street Kuala Lumpur Police Station  over Guan Eng’s detention.

The 1987 Ops Lalang mass ISA detentions was not only a black day for human rights in Malaysia, it also  marked the most relentless assault on democracy in Malaysia and we are still paying the consequences of that assault — which stemmed from the fight for political survival of the then  Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad  who was  faced with  the greatest challenge  to his power position from within Umno.

One upshot of Mahathir’s battle for his political life 20 years ago was the Operation Lalang and 106 ISA detainees and another was the subversion of the doctrine of the separation of powers, with Parliament and the judiciary subordinated as  subservient organs of the Prime Minister.

The seeds for the 1988 judiciary crisis over the arbitrary and unconstitutional sacking of Tun Saleh Abas as Lord President and Datuk George Seah and the late Tan Sri Wan Suleman Pawanteh as Supreme Court judges were sown at this period.

Even before the Operation Lalang, there were moves by Mahathir to subjugate the judiciary and I had publicly spoken up against a proposal to move a substantive motion in Parliament to censure the then High Court judge, the late Justice Harun Hashim, as a lesson to all judges to toe the Executive line.

Today, Malaysia is still paying a heavy price for the fateful decisions taken 20 years ago to undermine the democratic fundamentals in the country as represented by the doctrine of the separation of powers — with the country reeling from one judiciary crisis to another in the past two decades, the latest over the failure of judicial leadership of the Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, the Lingam Tape scandal, Ahmad Fairuz preposterous application for a six-month extension as Chief Justice from Nov. 1 and whether Malaysia will have an UMNO Chief Justice for the first time in 50 years.

Although the  doctrine of the separation of powers and the principle of the independence of the judiciary had been subverted for nearly two decades, the judicial landscape is not totally bleak and desolate as evidenced by the courageous and path-breaking judgment by the Kuala Lumpur High Court a week ago in awarding an ISA detainee, Abdul Malek Hussin RM2.5 milion in damages for having been unlawfully arrested, detained and beaten up while in police custody in 1998.

This landmark decision was made by High Court judge Datuk Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus — and this Hishamudin is not that Hishammuddin of the “Malay keris” notoriety!

On Thursday, the Barisan Nasional MP for Jerai, Datuk Badruddin Amiruldin openly attacked Justice Hishamudin from the floor of Parliament during his speech on the 2008 Budget, denouncing Hishamuddin as a “problem  judge” for his decision on the Malik Hussein case.

It is sober reminder  that Malaysia has still a long way to go before the enlightened view of Justice Hishamuddin can  find acceptance as mainstream establishment opinion.

Twenty years after the darks days of Operation Lalang, one thing is clear and indisputable — not a single one of the 106 Ops Lalang detainees should have been detained under the infamous and draconian detention-without trial law, and  Ops Lalang represented the most glaring example of the blatant and flagrant example of the misuse and abuse of the ISA for political purposes completely unrelated to any acceptable notion or consideration of   national security.

For this reason, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in keeping with his pledge when he acceded to the highest office of the land  to be reformist and modern-day Justice Pao to uphold justice, should   redeem the  two-decade old injustice and tender a public apology to the 106 victims of Operation Lalang  ISA dragnet as not a single one should have been persecuted with the ISA 20 years ago.  The ISA should also be repealed and removed from the statute books.

(Speech at the public forum “Operation Lalang — 20 Years Today” held in Pay Fong Chinese Independent Secondary School Hall, Malacca on Saturday, 27th October 2007 at 8 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 28 October 2007, 1:02 pm and is filed under
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
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Human Rights
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50-50 whether next general election this year or next year

With Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi celebrating his fourth anniversary as the fifth Prime Minister in two days’ time, which also marks  more than 3 years and 7 months after his unprecedented landslide victory in the 2004 general election, the question everyone is asking is the date for the next general election.

There are  three possibilities for the 12th general election in Malaysia:

1.	This year, with November 25 as the “hottest” date, with Abdullah in this scenario  announcing dissolution of Parliament at the end of the Umno General Assembly on Nov. 9;

2.	Before end of  next April with the “hottest date” in mid-March, 2008 before Anwar Ibrahim regains his civil liberties to stand for elective office; and

3.	After April next year as there appears to be growing support in Umno for the school of thought that the next general election should “exorcise” the Anwar factor and not allow it  to haunt Umno after the next general election on the ground that the election outcome would have been very different if Anwar had been allowed to contest — and based on the confidence that Umno is enjoying a very favourable political climate in the Malay heartland and the Umno constituencies.

If the 12th general election is to be held by the end of this year, the current parliamentary debate on the 2008 budget would have to be sacrificed — which would be most improper and high-handed as there could be no justification for abruptly ending the current parliamentary budget meeting, with all the debates on the 2008 budget since September rendered null and void, as the country is not facing any constitutional crisis where the government is  facing a sudden loss of majority support in Parliament.

But there had been such an arbitrary  precedent in the 1999 general election and the question is whether Abdullah wants to emulate his predecessor in such contemptible disregard for constitutional proprieties.

Many factors, particularly political and economic such as the global economic environment, will decide the date for the next general election.

I rate it as 50-50 whether the next general election will be held this year or next year.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 29 October 2007, 1:23 pm and is filed under
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Election
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Another Promised Change!

by M. Bakri Musa

In a recent meeting with media representatives, Chief Secretary to the Government (its topmost civil servant) Sidek Hassan assured the public that civil servants must now “perform or face the music.”  He also revealed the demotions of senior officers, including a few in the “super scale” grade and a Director-General.

            Sidek’s assurance was undoubtedly in response to the damning indictments in the recent Auditor General’s Report.  (What else is new?)  The Chief Secretary went on with promises of more actions.  Let us hope that his pledge is for real.  We have been through all these promised changes before, so citizens’ cynicism is understandable.

            The civil service cannot be improved merely through edicts from high above.  No less than Prime Minister Abdullah had made many similar pledges before.

            As the top civil servant, Sidek cannot effect meaningful changes until he knows the details of the various operations under him.  Not all of them; he needs study only two or three processes in some detail, identify the problems, and then solve them.  With that he could teach others and replicate the success elsewhere.

            All too often our top civil servants and ministers are content only with mere utterances:  “Be productive!” “Compete with the best!”  Unless they know the details of the operations of their departments, identify and eliminate the redundant processes, they could not hope to improve their services.  These senior officers should not expect their overworked line workers to come up with innovative solutions.  Besides, they lack the necessary knowledge or skills.

Leadership Through Ignorance

When I came home as a surgeon in 1975, the top honchos at the Ministry of Health and the General Hospital Kuala Lumpur took me around trying to impress me with their facility.  After an hour or so of this dog and pony show, I was fed up with the fluff thrown at me.

            We were standing overlooking the busy road in front of the hospital when an accident happened.  I asked the hospital director to imagine the driver sustaining a life-threatening ruptured spleen and thus needing my service.  How would I be contacted?

            From there I was able to find out about the ambulance service (haphazard), the quality of paramedics (untrained), and the Casualty Room capabilities (erratic system of contacting on-call specialists).  The two top officials were embarrassed because they could not answer my basic queries.

            I suggested to the two that on-call specialists be equipped with beepers so they could be readily contactable.  Sensible enough solution, except that neither the Director nor the ministry official could authorize such an expenditure!  They would have to submit that first to Treasury!  So calling surgeons remained a haphazard affair when I was there.  It would not surprise me if it still is, thirty years later.

            If the hospital director (or minister) had been familiar with details of the operation of the hospital, he would be less likely to criticize the doctors on call for not responding timely and instead supply them with beepers.

            A few years ago I was home to renew my ID card.  I was told that it would take months.  Fortunately I knew the department head, and between the two of us we had an exercise of going through every step of the process.  After that I told him how we could cut down the redundant steps, like having the forms available (and filled) online instead of lining up just to get the empty form.  We tried it with my application as a test, and I was able to get my new card within days.

            Then the department head told me why he could not do what I suggested.  It would mean laying off thousands of unneeded clerical staff; not politically acceptable.  Like it or not, our civil service is not for providing service, rather a massive public works program for those with liberal arts degrees who otherwise would not be employable.

            As head of a surgical unit at GHKL I was fed up with the large and unruly crowd at the beginning of my clinic day.  So I introduced staggered appointments, with follow-up patients (who are within our control as we made their appointments) to be seen at 3PM while patients referred from elsewhere and others (who are beyond our control) be seen at the clinic’s opening hour of 2PM.

            It worked wonderfully.  At least now we could reduce the crowd by half and thus be more manageable.  Our patients loved it.

            All went well for a few weeks, and then the crowd began coming back.  Puzzled, I decided to investigate.  It turned out that the front office clerk was telling everyone to come early and to ignore my advice about the scheduled appointments.  She had a very simple and remarkably effective rebuttal for my patients.  “Yes, I know the doctor asked you to come at 3, but better lah to come early.  The doctor is a busy man; it is better for us to wait for him instead of having him wait for us!”

            I could not help laughing at the clerk’s ingenuity in circumventing my orders.  To her it would be easier if all the patients were to come at the beginning, as that would mean going to the record room only once.

            Instead of getting angry with the poor overworked clerk, I gathered my staff and explained to them my rationale for the staggered appointments.  Something about respecting our patients by not having them wait.  I also made sure that the poor clerk had additional help in securing the charts.  After that I had no more problem.  Simple solution, but it required my active intervention as a department head to study the problem, implement the solution, and get my staff on board.

            My clinic was one of the few that was orderly.  One consequence to my successful arrangement was that people began whispering that I was not a “good” surgeon as my clinic was not crowded!  Luckily my patients, colleagues and staff were happy with our service, so that bit of rumor had no traction.

            My point is this:  Simply saying you must improve your service will not do it.  Sidek and the other top civil servants need to do more, like analyzing and re-engineering the various processes.  If the solution you prescribed does not work (or no longer does), examine the reasons why and try to overcome them.

Incompetence, Insularity, and Lack of Integrity

Our civil service is afflicted with the terrible triad of incompetence, insularity, and lack of integrity.  I am not referring to the rank and file union members, rather the managers and officers, those in the “superscale” category.  Each of these afflictions by itself is quite crippling; combined their destructive powers are amplified considerably.

            Ask a senior civil servant what management journals he subscribes to or reads regularly, and you would draw a blank.  The standard response is that these journals are expensive, but those officers have allowances.  The more valid reason is their lack of professionalism and sense of self-improvement.  Their low English proficiency is also a contributor.

            I would make it a condition for promotions for these officers to demonstrate their competency in English.  We did something similar in the 1960s when civil servants had to be proficient in the national language to be confirmed.

            As for competency, the government spends little in the development of its staff.  Ask a civil servant when was the last time he or she attended a formal continuing education session, and you would also draw a blank.

            A major contributor to the lack of integrity is of course pervasive corruption.  I need not write more except to note that instead of tackling it head on, the government establishes yet another bureaucracy, the National Integrity Institute.  A simple move that would not involve spending more money or hiring additional personnel would be to make the Anti Corruption Agency independent, answerable only to Parliament or the King.

            Lack of integrity is also tied to lack of professionalism.  How many times have you seen senior civil servants bring their work home?  They may be in upper management, but their mentality is still the clerical nine-to-five.  I have yet to see senior civil servants on extended overseas trips carry a laptop.  Meaning, when they are away, they are cut off from their offices.

            When asked why they do not have a laptop, these officers tell me that the government does not provide them with one, and they are too cheap to buy one on their own.  If they were to travel business class instead of first, the government would have more than enough funds to supply each member of their family with a super laptop.

            Query a Secretary- or Director-General, a ministry’s top civil servant, what innovations he or she had instituted within the past few years, or the challenges facing his agency and how he or she would solve them, and you will also get a bewildering look.

            The civil service is hampered by its insularity, with promotions strictly from within.  There is no infusion of fresh talent other than at the entry level.  To make matters worse, recruits are overwhelmingly local graduates in the liberal arts.  Apart from their abysmal English proficiency, they are also severely mathematically challenged.  There is also minimal specialization.  An officer may be posted in Sports Ministry one year and be in the Foreign Ministry the next.

            In my book
Towards A Competitive Malaysia
, I suggested getting fresh talent at the mid and senior levels.  The next time a vacancy occurs at the Director-General level, open up the recruitment to applicants from academia and the private sector.  I also suggested having four or five broad areas of concentration with officers rotated only within one area so they could develop some specific skills and knowledge.  This was also the recommendation of Milton Esman, the American professor hired by Tun Razak in the 1970s to spruce up the civil service.

            Yes there will be the exceptional talent who could be an accomplished academic, an effective CEO the next time, and then capping his distinguished career as a seasoned statesman.  For most however, especially those in the mid level, they are better off staying and learning within a limited sphere.

            Sidek Hassan should go beyond simply warning his officers to “perform or face the music,” I would have been more assured had he asked them to subscribe to at least three professional journals, attend 25 hours of formal continuing professional education courses annually, pass an English competency test, and require them to have a laptop

                This entry was posted on Monday, 29 October 2007, 10:14 am and is filed under
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PM  boycotts Law Conference (updated)

“Bar Council’s conference scores double firsts”
was the
Sunday Star
 headline report for the three-day 14th Malaysian Law Conference 2007 themed “50 Years of Merdeka”  at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre beginning today.

The
Sunday Star
 headline was right but  the “double firsts” will be for completely different reasons.

Last night, I learnt that the de facto Law Minister, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, who in a lengthy
New Sunday Times

interview
 yesterday asked “Where got crisis of the judiciary?”, will not  be closing the  Conference on Wednesday as announced in the Conference Programme.

This morning, I learn that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, will be boycotting the Law Conference, although he is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the opening session from 9.40 am – 10.30 am after the opening by the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah.

Where got judicial crisis?  Where got constitutional crisis?

Postscript – The Prime Minister is inviting all participants of the Law Conference to an unscheduled dinner at Hotel  Renaissance tonight.

Malaysiakini
 reported that Abdullah will read his keynote address meant for delivery at the Law Conference this morning at the dinner.

Malaysiakini also reported that Abdullah “cancelled his appearance at the opening ceremony at the eleventh hour to officiate the launch of the East Coast Economic Region project” in Kuala Terengganu.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 29 October 2007, 8:50 am and is filed under
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Judicial independence – Sultan Azlan Shah’s “disquiet” only that of one person?

In my
Open Letter
 to Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim  last Tuesday to act in the national interest to restore public confidence in the judiciary by withdrawing his controversial application for a six-month extension, I had quoted extensively from former Lord President, Perak Sultan Azlan Shah’s April 2004 postscript to his book “Constitutional Monarchy, Rule of Law and Good Governance” over the “disquiet” at the erosion of public confidence in the judiciary over the previous few years.

I had said that Sultan Azlan Shah’s “critique of the parlous state of the judiciary is even more pertinent today than when he wrote it  in April 2004,  with the entire period falling  under your (Ahmad Fairuz)  term  as Chief Justice — a powerful reason why Tun should avert a constitutional crisis and a new crisis of confidence over the judiciary over the controversial application for a six-month extension.”

This has been confirmed by Sultan Azlan Shah In his
opening speech
at the 14th Malaysia Law Conference yesterday, as he said:

Sadly I must acknowledge there has been some disquiet about our judiciary over the past few years and in the more recent past. In 2004, I had stated that it grieved me, having been a member of the judiciary, whenever I heard allegations against the judiciary and the erosion of public confidence in the judiciary.

Recently there have been even more disturbing events relating to the judiciary reported in the press. We have also witnessed the unprecedented act of a former Court of Appeal judge writing in his post-retirement book of erroneous and questionable judgements delivered by our higher courts in a chapter under the heading “When Justice is Not Administered According to Law”. There are other serious criticisms.

I am driven nostalgically to look back to a time when our Judiciary was the pride of the region, and our neighbours spoke admiringly of our legal system. We were then second to none and the judgements of our courts were quoted confidently in other common law jurisdictions. As Tun Suffian, a former Lord President of the then Federal Court, said of the local judges who took over from the expatriate judges after Merdeka that the transformation was without “any reduction in standards”.

Admittedly society is more complex today and the task of judges may be more difficult then what it was before, but the values I speak of are universal and eternal.

There is no reason why judges with the assured security of tenure they enjoy under the Constitution should not discharge their duties impartially, confidently and competently.

Will the  de facto Law Minister, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz dismiss Sultan Azlan Shah’s  increasing “disquiet” about the crisis of confidence in the judiciary as a “false” perception and baseless allegation of one person, in the way he dismissed the concern of Malaysian Bar on the ground that  it is no “big deal” as only 1,000 out of 13,000 lawyers or 26 million Malaysians had taken part in the “Walk for Justice” to the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 30 October 2007, 10:28 am and is filed under
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Police at war with itself

Before Parliament adjourned at 7.30 pm, I asked the Deputy Internal Security Minister, Datuk Foo Ah Kiow to give a proper, informed and satisfactory report on the unprecedented phenomenon of “the police at war with itself” as well as “at war” with the Internal Security Ministry when he resumes his reply on behalf of his Ministry on the 2008 Budget tomorrow.

I had referred in particular to the
three-page press statement
earlier in the day by the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) chief Ramli Yusuff, where he made serious allegations about victimization of CCID officers by the police and mistreatment by the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA).

Ramli confirmed that he was the police officer being investigated for amassing
RM27 million in undeclared assets
and denied that he had amassed RM27 million.

Ramli said he had  “until today remained silent about developments in the police force, in particular, the arrest and prosecution of officers of the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) who are alleged to have falsified statements of confidential informants in connection with the banishment of one Goh Cheng Poh @ Tengku”.

Goh, who was alleged to be an underworld kingpin in Johore, was ordered to be detained  on  the directive of Deputy Internal Security Minister  Datuk Johari Baharom based on the intelligence gathered by police officers of CCID.

Goh was eventually “banished” to Jeli, Kelantan and subsequently applied to the High Court to set aside Johari’s banishment order.

In Parliament today, I read out five  paragraphs from Ramli’s three-page statement, viz:

“In an unprecedented stance, the legal adviser of the Ministry of Internal Security, an officer of the Attorney-General’s Chambers, declined to advise and direct my officers and I (to) prepare affidavits of the events surrounding the preparation of the investigative papers on Goh for the benefit of the deputy minister of internal security.

“Those affidavits were to be filed in the High Court arising from the application by Goh to have his banishment order set aside. Given the constraints of time, we, the officers of the CCID, sought legal advice from a private law practice who advised and assisted in the preparation of the draft affidavits concerned.

“I was under advice at the time that the attorney-general (Abdul Gani Patail) was under a duty to advise and assist us in the preparation of the said affidavits under Article 145 of the Federal Constitution and the Government Proceedings Act, 1956.

“My officers and I were then directed to deliver up the confidential case files containing the names of the confidential informants to the Attorney-General’s Chambers. I have since been aware that officers of the ACA have tracked down these informants and taken statements from them. Subsequently, these informants have made further statements in connection with their seeking (of) protection from the deputy minister of internal security… .

“I am gravely concerned by the manner in which the identities of police informants are dealt with in investigations carried out by the ACA. The identities of the informants were obtained through the circumvention of the Inspector General’s Standing Orders. Given these events, there exists a clear and present danger as to the intelligence gathering ability of the police force and its ability to protect its informants.”

I said in Parliament  that this would be the first time in the 50-year history of the nation that the police is at war with itself as well as with the Ministry of Internal Security, with the ACA and the Attorney-General taking sides, and asked what is the Minister for Internal Security who is also the Prime Minister doing to end such fratricidal strife in his own backyard..

I observed that if the identities of police informants could be blown and exposed to victimization, which whistleblower would have confidence to come forward to give information — making a total mockery of the repeated assurances  of protection by various parties, including the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, the Police, the ACA and the three-man Haidar Panel to the person or persons who had recorded the Lingam Tape to surface publicly and reveal themselves.

Let’s wait for Chapter 2 of “Police At War With Itself” tomorrow.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 30 October 2007, 11:01 pm and is filed under
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An Open Letter to  Sultan Azlan Shah

Your Royal Highness,

Thank you very much for portraying the truth about the state of the country’s judiciary and your accompanying clarion call for major reforms in the judiciary during your opening address at the 14th Malaysian Law Conference recently.

You acknowledged with sadness that “there has been some disquiet about our judiciary over the past few years and in the more recent past… there have been even more disturbing events relating to the judiciary reported in the press”.

“We have also witnessed the unprecedented act of a former Court of Appeal judge writing in his post-retirement book of erroneous and questionable judgments delivered by our higher courts in a chapter under the heading ‘When Justice is Not Administered According to Law’.”

You highlighted “serious criticisms” against the judiciary such as delayed judgments and backlog in cases as a result of incompetence. You gave the example of a case of medical negligence involving a death of a lawyer which took 23 years to reach the Court of Appeal.

“Similarly there have been reports that some judges have taken years to write their grounds of judgments involving accused persons who have been convicted and languishing in death row.” (Like the judge who failed to deliver 35 judgments including four in which the convicted are languishing in jail despite being sentenced to death seven years ago?)

“Surely, such a situation cannot be tolerated in any progressive nation,” Your Royal Highness so very aptly concluded. The powers that be should therefore understand why the lawyers walked, the people talked and the rest blogged.

You have rightly pointed out that this is not the first time that you have expressed grave concern over the judiciary: “In 2004, I had stated that it grieved me, having been a member of the judiciary, whenever I heard allegations against the judiciary and the erosion of public confidence in the judiciary.”

Your Royal Highness had in June 2004 warned that “the erosion of public confidence in the judiciary’s independence would ultimately lead to instability and remedying it would be a protracted and arduous task.”

But, very evidently, the tell-me-the-truth Government has not been listening (even though it claims to be open). After saying that you had given a “very good speech” Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, who is also the de facto Law Minister, Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, told the press that the state of the judiciary that you had described was merely your “perception”.

Clearly contradicting the scenario that you had painted in your opening address, Nazri very proudly and loudly declared to the press that “there was no erosion of public confidence in the judiciary” (NST, 30.10.07).

You stressed in your opening address: “In matters concerning the judiciary, it is the public perception of the judiciary that ultimately matters. A judiciary loses its value and service to the community if there is no public confidence in its decision-making.”

When asked to comment on public confidence being an integral part of the judiciary Nazri said: “I agree but the public… what is the public? Does the public mean 1,000 or 2,000 people or the whole nation?” It was just as good as him saying “Does the public mean the voice of one Sultan?”

Your Royal Highness, if we were to apply and follow Nazri’s arguments and the twisted logic which he had used to arrive at his arguments, which appeared in a NST interview (28.10.07), your grave concerns would be deemed as “a false allegation”, a “perception created by some people… who are unhappy, make a lot of noise… ” Yours (according to the Minister) will be a view of the “minority”.

Nazri had also insisted that there isn’t a crisis in the judiciary and that “(c)risis means it involves the whole country but nobody talks about it. I even asked my fellow members of parliament (MP) but nobody talks about it. So, what crisis are we talking about? The crisis is in the minds of those who created it.”

The NST interview caused Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang to ask: “Will the de facto Law Minister, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz dismiss Sultan Azlan Shah’s increasing “disquiet” about the crisis of confidence in the judiciary as a “false” perception and baseless allegation of one person, in the way he dismissed the concern of Malaysian Bar on the ground that it is no “big deal” as only 1,000 out of 13,000 lawyers or 26 million Malaysians had taken part in the “Walk for Justice” to the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya?”

It now appears that the independence and future of the judiciary in our beloved country depends very much on the perception of one man — Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz. He had even made it very clear (last year) that we have to ‘convince’ him first if things are to improve significantly in the judiciary.

Perhaps Your Royal Highness could educate the minister with what you had written in the postscript to your book “Constitutional Monarchy, Rule of Law and Good Governance” (pp 399 — 401) in April 2004:

 “…  statements made as to its independence (of the judiciary) by the judges, or even the politicians (my emphasis), do not measure public confidence in the judiciary. At the end of the day, it is this public perception that ultimately matters.”

As for the de facto Law Minister’s seeking refuge under the “silent majority” as “the public”, Nazri’s predecessor, Rais Yatim, who wrote “Freedom under Executive Power In Malaysia: A Study of Executive Supremacy”, would be able to unveil the Minister’s cheap and stale political trick:

The “… supremacy of the executive can be achieved and maintained within the so-called democratic process through political manipulations. This is exemplified by the very mechanism of democracy, namely, majoritism, which since Merdeka in 1957 the executive branch of government in Malaysia has been able to render subservient both the judiciary as well as the parliament.”

Your Royal Highness, one can understand why you are “driven nostalgically to look back to a time when our judiciary was the pride of the region and our neighbours spoke admiringly of our legal system” and we were then “second to none and the judgments of our courts were quoted confidently in other common law jurisdictions”.

Today, we are driven nauseatingly to look back at our judiciary. The region and our neighbours still talk about us. We have become a laughing stock. We are second to none when it comes to kangaroo courts and court jesters like the de facto Law Minister. The judgments of our courts are often quoted in political satire and online comic scripts.

May Your Royal Highness continue to speak out boldly on common law jurisdictions and the judiciary on behalf of the common man (and woman) as it has become increasingly common knowledge to many of us that we are being led by a Government tragically lacking in common sense.

A proud and loyal son of Perak,

Martin Jalleh

31 October 2007

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 31 October 2007, 12:19 pm and is filed under
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