20 Aug, 2008
A decade later, with Anwar facing similar charges, Shaik Daud says Malaysia's judiciary still needs reform. “The system is crooked,” said Shaik Daud, who calls himself politically independent.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Malaysia Today
There are those who can’t imagine why Anwar Ibrahim ignores the call for him to swear on the Quran in a mosque that he is innocent of the allegation of sodomy and also why Raja Petra Kamarudin ignores Malaysian courts.
On the Anwar issue, first of all, there is no such thing as swearing on the Quran in Islam and many religious scholars and leaders have said so quite explicitly. Why these people still insist that Anwar do so is perplexing. Read our lips: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SWEARING ON THE QURAN IN ISLAM. Let’s hope these sorry excuses for Muslims hear us loud and clear this time.
Secondly, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Bin Azlan, IC No: 850706-01-5687, of No. 29, Jalan BU 7/6, Selangor, swore on the Quran at 6.00pm on 15 August in the Federal Territory Mosque in front of Ramlang Bin Porigi, UMNO Member No. 03405853 of Cawangan Seri Macang, Bahagian Bukit Mertajam, Parlimen Permatang Pauh.
Can you now see the comedy of the whole thing? Ramlang Porigi, the so-called ‘Imam’ who conducted Saiful’s swearing on the Quran, other than possessing a name that sounds like an illegal Indonesian immigrant who has just been given a ‘blue’ IC, is an UMNO member from Permatang Pauh. Any wonder why Anwar ‘tak layan’ this whole matter? It was all a circus show for the benefit of the Permatang Pauh voters.
Now, with regards to the Raja Petra issue, today’s story from Bloomberg says it all. Before that, however, let us reveal what happened to Raja Petra in April 2001 and why he no longer ‘layan’ Malaysian courts.
Raja Petra was detained under the Internal Security Act on 11 April 2001. The Special Branch then demanded that he hand over his international passport. But Raja Petra did not have his passport with him. It was lodged at the British High Commission and there was no way the Special Branch could get its hands on it.
The Special Branch demanded to know why his passport was not in his possession but was instead with the British High Commission. Raja Petra refused to reveal the reason. “Never mind,” the Special Branch told him. “We have other ways of blocking your passport.”
Three days later, on 14 April 2001, the day of Raja Petra’s wedding anniversary, a letter was dropped into the letterbox of his house giving him 14 days to contest a bankruptcy order. Since he was under 60 days ISA detention he certainly could not make an appearance in court within the stipulated 14 days to contest the bankruptcy order. Anyway, the bankruptcy order was not served on him but was dropped into the letterbox.
Raja Petra was released from ISA detention on 6 June 2001. A few weeks later, he went to meet Manjeet Singh of Sri Ram & Co. to try to get them to set aside the bankruptcy order. Sri Ram & Co. checked with the courts and discovered that the whole file had disappeared. There was no way they could contest the order, Manjeet told Raja Petra, since the file had disappeared. Anyway, Manjeet told him, once bankruptcy has been obtained you can’t apply to set it aside. You are supposed to contest the order within the 14 days given to you. The fact that one is under 60 days detention and there was no way one could appear in court to contest the order does not change the decision of the court.
Since then Raja Petra ‘tak layan’ Malaysian courts. Malaysian courts do not dispense justice. They serve their political masters.
Anwar Sex Case Puts Malaysian Courts on Trial as Election Nears
By Angus Whitley
(Bloomberg) -- The first time Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia's former deputy prime minister, was accused of illegal sex with a man, the court proceedings so dismayed a Universiti Malaya law lecturer that he told his students to throw away their textbooks.
“What's admissible is irrelevant, what's relevant is not admissible,” retired High Court Judge Shaik Daud Ismail said he told his class after the trial that convicted Anwar started in 1998.
A decade later, with Anwar facing similar charges, Shaik Daud, 72, says Malaysia's judiciary still needs reform. “The system is crooked,” said Shaik Daud, who calls himself politically independent.
Anwar, 61, served six years in prison before his conviction was overturned in 2004. Now leader of the opposition, he says the new case was fabricated to stop him from ousting the ruling coalition that banished him the last time he was accused. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, Anwar's rival to succeed Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, denies that.
Lashing back, Anwar last month helped publicise a private investigator's accusation that Najib had an affair with a woman before she was murdered. Najib, 55, denied ever meeting her. The investigator retracted the claim a day later.
The counter-allegations are testing a judicial system that even Abdullah has said some Malaysians see as corrupt.
Liable to Manipulation
“The system is liable to manipulation,” says Abdul Aziz Bari, an International Islamic University Malaysia law professor. “I am not sure whether it is good enough to handle all this.”
Malaysia's chief justice, Abdul Hamid Mohamad, declined to be interviewed for this story.
Anwar pleaded not guilty on August 7 to having sex with a 23- year-old man who worked for him. He's accused under a law barring sodomy, defined as 'carnal intercourse against the order of nature’. Violators face up to 20 years in prison.
Free on bail, Anwar plans to win a seat in an August 26 parliamentary by-election and then persuade enough ruling-coalition lawmakers to join his opposition to oust Abdullah. In March elections, opposition gains left the ruling coalition with its smallest majority since independence from Britain in 1957.
In Malaysia, King Mizan Zainal Abidin appoints judges on the advice of the prime minister. Judges, not juries, deliver verdicts after hearing evidence from prosecutors and the defence.
Dismissed Judge
The judiciary lost credibility in 1988 when then-King Sultan Iskandar Ismail dismissed Salleh Abas, Malaysia's chief judge, on instructions from a tribunal set up by Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister at the time. Mahathir denied involvement in the decision, which followed a High Court ruling that his party was illegal because some regional branches weren't properly registered.
In another 1988 move that critics say compromised independence, the government changed the constitution to allow federal law, rather than the constitution itself, to determine the reach of judicial power.
“The amendment disturbs the concept of the separation of powers,” the International Bar Association and other lawyers' groups said in a 2000 report. “It tends to make the judiciary an arm of the legislature, an instrument of the executive.”
The handling of the Anwar sodomy case raised further doubts. As deputy leader from 1993 to 1998, he and Mahathir had clashed over the Asian financial crisis.
Deja Vu
As that rivalry heated up, Anwar was accused of sodomy with a man. Anwar successfully argued on appeal that the trial judge disregarded exculpatory evidence: A prosecution witness changed the alleged offense's date. A policeman said Anwar's DNA could have been ‘planted’ on a mattress. The chemist who testified he found the DNA said he destroyed it.
“The case was embarrassing and did a lot more damage to Malaysia's judicial-system image than it did to Anwar,” says Robert Broadfoot, managing director of Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. “There's the suspicion of political influence. Is this deja vu all over again?” he added, referring to the new case.
As opposition leader, Anwar criticises the system. Last year, he released a secretly filmed video showing a lawyer claiming to know about future judicial appointments during a phone call with a judge.
Chronic Backlog
A royal inquiry found that the 2001 recording suggested an ‘insidious movement’ to influence appointments. Abdullah, 68, in March responded by appointing Senator Zaid Ibrahim to push through reforms. “The 1988 ‘crisis'’ still haunts us,” Abdullah said in April, promising a new commission to vet judge candidates.
“The legal sector has been neglected,” said Zaid, a former lawyer. Judges are paid too little and face a chronic case backlog.
There are 903,000 outstanding cases in Malaysia, state news service Bernama said on June 3. Malaysia's chief justice, Abdul Hamid, earns RM424,314 ($127,441) a year, including perks, according to the Malaysian Bar Council. In the U.S., Chief Justice John Roberts will be paid $217,400 this year.
Abdullah's vetting commission probably won't start work until 2009, and how much authority will rest with the premier remains undecided, Zaid said.
“I question whether the prime minister should be given the sole prerogative on picking judges,” said Gobind Singh, an opposition lawmaker. “That allows for an ultimately biased judiciary.”
Any legal shakeup should include the police, said Tunku Abdul Aziz, a member of a 2004 royal inquiry into Malaysia's police.
In 1998, Anwar was beaten by Malaysia's police chief, Abdul Rahim Noor, who was sentenced to two months in prison for the attack. Malaysia has yet to create an independent police complaints commission, the inquiry's main recommendation.
“We discovered that every level of the police service was tainted by corruption,” Abdul Aziz said.
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