KUALA LUMPUR: Three independent minded judges who have made some rulings unfavourable to the Barisan Nasional government are expected to be transferred out of the High Court’s Appellate and Special Powers division soon.
They are due to be moved to the High Court’s Commercial Division, where they will no longer be able to hear politically linked cases.
The three are Justice Datuk Alizatul Khair Osman Khairuddin, Justice Lau Bee Lan and Justice Mohamad Ariff Md Yusoff, according to the latest edition of Suara Keadilan, the official organ of Parti Keadilan Rakyat.
The paper quoted court insiders as saying that the judges will be transferred this month.
Justice Alizatul recently declared that Umno’s Abu Hassan Sarif was no longer the Kedah state assemblyman for Kota Siputeh and ordered the Election Commission to hold a by-election.
An appeal is now pending against her judgment.
Justice Lau heard the case in which deposed Mentri Besar Mohammad Jamaluddin of Pakatan Rakyat challenged the legitimacy of his successor, Umno’s Zambry Abdul Kadir, and ruled that the Federal Court must determine four constitutional questions.
However, the Federal Court ordered that the case of who was the rightful Perak Menteri Besar should be heard by the High Court. The case was later heard by a new High Court judge who replaced Justice Lau without the public being given any reason given for the switch.
In what was seen as a stunning rebuff to the Barisan Nasional government and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s investigative procedures, Justice Mohamad Ariff recently ruled that MACC had no right to question witnesses in an investigation beyond normal office hours.
The judge also found that the MACC acted illegally when it detained Pakatan Rakyat’s Kajang town councillor Tan Boon Wah overnight at its Selangor head office in Shah Alam.
Suara Keadilan opines that the transfer of the three judges was an attempt by the Umno-led Barisan to strengthen its grip on the judiciary.
It says that one of the judges to be named to the Appellate and Special Powers Division is Justice Mohamed Apandi Ali, a former Kelantan Umno treasurer who was appointed Judicial Commissioner in 2003.
Commenting on the expected transfer of the judges, lawyer Edmund Bon told Suara Keadilan that he and many of his colleagues were uneasy about the development.
He pointed out that there had not been a single complaint against any of the three judges throughout their service in the Appellate and Special Powers Division.
Since no logical reason could be seen for the decision to move out the judges, he said, there was no escaping the perception that politics was behind it.
All rise.The judge Paraiyan Augustinkosong son of Asshole is prejudging
All rise. The judge walks in and takes his seat.
Duduk!
All sit down again.
Case number 1651/09, the Shah Alam High Court, Public Prosecutor versus Mohd Azmir Mohd Zin, Ahmad Suhairi Zakaria, Mohd Hilmi Ni, Eyzra Ezhar Ramlz, Ibrahim Sabri and Ahmad Mahayuddhn Abd Manaf. Will all the accused please come forward and enter the dock.
The six enter the dock.
Okay. What is the charge? Please read out the charges to all the accused.
Yes, your honour. You, Mohd Azmir Mohd Zin, Ahmad Suhairi Zakaria, Mohd Hilmi Ni, Eyzra Ezhar Ramlz, Ibrahim Sabri and Ahmad Mahayuddhn Abd Manaf, are accused of dragging a cow’s head after Friday prayers on…….
Hold on. What are they being charged for?
Sedition, your honour.
Sedition? How come I don’t get to hear sodomy cases? I want to hear a sodomy case. Is there any sodomy involved here?
No, your honour. Only sedition.
How did they commit sedition?
They dragged a cow’s head to the Selangor State Secretariat building.
How can they commit sedition against a cow? Dragging a cow is not seditious.
It was not a cow, your honour. It was a cow’s head.
Of course you have to drag a cow by the head. I know that. You can’t drag a cow by the tail.
It was not a live cow, your honour. It was a dead cow.
These six accused dragged a dead cow?
Not a dead cow, your honour. Just a cow’s head. They cut off the head and just dragged the head.
They needed six people just to drag one cow’s head?
No, your honour. Only two dragged the cow’s head. In fact, they carried it by the horns. Not actually dragged it along the ground.
Then how come six are being charged if only two dragged the cow’s head? Did they take turns to drag the cow’s head?
No, your honour. Two dragged the cow’s head. The other four stepped on the cow’s head and spit on it.
So this is sedition against the cow?
Not sedition against the cow, your honour. They committed sedition because their act was an insult to Hindus.
Was the cow owned by a Hindu man?
No, your honour. We have not yet established who owned the cow.
Did the owner of the cow make a police report?
No, your honour. But many Hindus did make police reports.
But none of these Hindus owned the cow?
No, your honour.
Then why are they so upset?
Because they feel insulted.
Aiyah! This case is getting very complicated even before the trial can start.
AUSTINKOSONG SON OF SCATTERBRAIN–The deceptive Judge INDEPENDENCE,IMPARTIALITY ,INTEGRITY ,EQUALITY ,COMPETENCE AND DILIGENC HE PRICE IT $$$ per kilo
Can’t we just charge them for sodomy instead? I want to hear a sodomy case. Judges become famous when they hear sodomy cases, not cases involving cow’s heads.
We can’t, your honour. There is no sodomy involved here.
I’m sure if the police investigate properly they will find someone who has been sodomised.
Well, your honour, I think Umno has been sodomised.
There you are. So there is sodomy involved. Can we amend the charges to sodomy against Umno instead?
But your honour, Umno was not literally sodomised. It’s more like figure of speech sodomised. Umno was sodomised politically.
Anwar Ibrahim did not literally sodomise anyone either. He sort of politically sodomised Dr Mahathir Mohamad. But that did not stop the government from charging him and finding him guilty of sodomy. Why can’t these six be charged for sodomy, for politically sodomising Umno? I want to hear a sodomy case.
For this particular case we can’t, your honour. But maybe we can give you another sodomy case to hear. Tiong King Sing just sodomised Ong Tee Keat by revealing the details of the RM10 million cash donation. It is now public knowledge and there is even a Statutory Declaration floating around.
Fantastic. Make sure that that case comes to my court. Where did the crime occur?
In Petaling Jaya, your honour.
Ah, then that comes under my court’s jurisdiction. Okay, let us proceed with this sedition case then. Are there any witnesses involved? How many witnesses are going to be called and how many days will we need for this case?
Initially, there were some videos of the crime.
Are the videos going to be entered as evidence? Then the accused might as well just plead guilty and save the court’s time. If there are videos then they have no defence.
The videos were available, your honour. But now the MCMC has asked Malaysiakini to remove the videos under threat. So the videos are no longer available.
So the evidence no longer exists?
No, your honour.
If there is no longer any evidence why waste the court’s time with a trial? Just drop the charges.
We can’t, your honour. We have to make the Hindus happy by at least pretending that we are putting the six on trial and then later either drop the charges or find them not guilty due to lack of video evidence.
Why later? Why not now?
We can’t, your honour. There is a by-election coming up soon in Port Dickson and there are about 20% Hindu voters there. This will make the Hindu voters very unhappy. We can only drop the charges after Umno wins the by-election. If not Umno is going to be sodomised good and proper.
Ah, if Umno loses the by-election can’t we then change the charge to sodomy since Umno was sodomised in the by-election?
Umno can’t lose the by-election, your honour.
Why not?
Because there are more than 5,000 postal voters in a total of only 14,000 registered voters.
I see. So the opposition is going to be sodomised instead then.
Sort of, your honour.
And these six people being charged are also opposition members?
They are, your honour.
I always said Anwar Ibrahim’s people are troublemakers. All opposition people are troublemakers. I have already decided to find them guilty even before the trial starts.
These six are not Anwar Ibrahim’s people, your honour.
You said they are opposition supporters.
They are Umno supporters, your honour.
But you said they are opposition supporters.
Yes, your honour. Umno is the opposition in Selangor.
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The Anuar Ibrahim Saga continues. Gani Patail Witness what happened to Anwarwhy Gani Patail as high ranking officier in AG office was not CHARGE
The Paradox of Retribution is Justice is an illusion?
Exactly like 10 years ago Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today failed to escape trial for sodomy.
High Court judge Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah here tossed out the PKR adviser’s bid to strike out the sodomy charge against him and fixed the trial to be from January 25 to February 25 next year.
The judge said that the High Court has “inherent powers” to set aside the charge against Anwar but ruled that the latter must prove his claims of bad intent and political conspiracy on the part of the Attorney-General’s office.
Zabidin added that it was up to the prosecution to decide how they wanted to prove penetration occurred.
The 62-year-old grandfather stands accused of sodomy for the second time in his life; this time, it is with a former male aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, 24.
Anwar’s defence lawyers had earlier argued that the charge was a baseless political conspiracy because several government and private doctors had in their reports not found any signs of forced penetration on Mohd Saiful.
But the public prosecutor, led by Solicitor General II Datuk Yusof Zainal Abiden, had last week claimed they had extra medical evidence to show Mohd Saiful had been sexually involved with his ex-boss.
Yusof drew the court’s attention to a government-run Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) report which noted finding “a mixture of male DNA from two individuals” through a swabbing of Mohd Saiful’s anus.
The senior lawyer from the Attorney General’s Chambers added that it had more such forensic and oral evidence to support the sodomy charge.
Anwar was arrested and subsequently charged with committing sex against the order of nature on August 7 last year, just before he bounced back into Parliament after taking back his old Permatang Pauh
seat in a by-election.
The former deputy prime minister had spent six years behind bars for the crime a decade ago before the conviction was reversed.related article
read this Should Anwar have Access to the Prosecution’s Evidence? The evil plot vs evil plothonesty without the serum Truth or dare! Just the lure of lucre seem
If the ambitious Anwar is found guilty and convicted this time, he may spend up to 20 years behind bars, which would really snuff out his bid to take over Putrajaya with political allies DAP and PAS.
Anwar will appeal against the High Court’s rebuff at the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya tomorrow, his lawyer, Sankara Nair, told reporters later.
“We’re quite in a quagmire,” Nair said, looking disturbed.
“How can we craft our defence unless we have all our data?” he added, noting that the High Court judge had chosen to brush aside the defence team’s request to stay the trial until the Federal Court had disposed
of Anwar’s related appeal to get extra evidence he claims is key to proving he is innocent.
Sankara said that a normal appeal takes about two months to be heard.
He was also upset that Zabidin had ticked off Karpal’s call to push the trial to a later date.
Sankara said Anwar’s chosen lead counsel, Raja Aziz Addruse, is currently abroad and was only due to return in February.
Sankara added that the defence may also try to rope in the Federal Court to stay the start of trial if their appeal for more proof is not heard before Jan 25.
Anwar himself was highly disgusted by Zabidin’s ruling.
The federal lawmaker pointed out that the High Court judge had earlier noted an accused person’s fundamental rights to fully defend himself under Malaysian law, but appeared to be pedalling backwards when he fixed trial to start despite knowing of the pending appeal.
“The judge should at least respect his own decision and allow our appeal at the Federal Court,” Anwar told reporters outside the courtroom later, surrounded by his wife and supporters.
“This is the first case in the history of modern times that you prefer a charge of sexual abuse ignoring medical evidence with a conclusive finding of no trace of penetration,” the Permatang Pauh MP pounded.
Anwar continued hitting out against Zabidin, noting the judge had showed a tendency to “protect the prosecution” and repeated his allegation that the present team of lawyers from the Attorney General’s Chambers, especially the Solicitor General II who is heading the charge, was involved in cooking up sodomy evidence in Sodomy I involving Anwar’s Indonesian adopted brother Sukma Darmawan.
Anwar foresees a “very tough battle” ahead but stressed that he is prepared to fight the sodomy charge to the bitter end “because we have compelling arguments and facts”.
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| Art Harundescribes himself as a non-governmental organism, intent on infecting the conscience. |
Justice is an illusion
It’s really tough being a judge. Really, I think it’s a thankless job. A judge can never do any right.
I think it was in 1996 that a soon-to-be-really-famous High Court judge politely asked me and my opponent whether we would mind remaining in his chambers for some small talk after we had finished our hearing before him. As I had no other case to do, I obliged the judge. So did my opponent.
He asked both of us how long we had been practising. I told him I had practised for about 10 years. He smiled and said that I could be a judge soon (as the Federal Constitution states that a person who has been a lawyer for 10 years or more can be a judge).
I was wondering what was on the judge’s mind. He looked tired. Something was bothering him. He looked and behaved almost like he was resigned to the hopelessness of it all. He was looking at both me and my opponent intently. There was something that he wanted to say but couldn’t.
Finally he asked, “What do you think of justice?” My opponent was senior to me and so he answered first. I can’t really remember what my opponent said. After he had finished saying his piece, the judge looked at me. “What do you think?” he asked me.this this
AUSTINKOSONG SON OF SCATTERBRAIN–The deceptive Judge INDEPENDENCE,IMPARTIALITY ,INTEGRITY ,EQUALITY ,COMPETENCE AND DILIGENC HE PRICE IT $$$ per kilo
I looked at him and without hesitation I said, “Judge, I don’t believe in justice!” He was petrified! I know he was going to ask why the hell I was practising law then. Before he did so, I continued, “Judge, human beings are incapable of dispensing justice. Only God can do so. Justice is subjective. The winning party will say they have got justice. The losing party will never say so.”
The Judge was unimpressed. He looked deep in thought. He was clearly ruffled by what I had just said. Finally, he said, “Could you then tell me what I and all my brother judges have been doing all this while? And what you and your learned friends have been doing appearing before us?”
“Judge, I am a law practitioner, not a justice practitioner. You and your brother judges have been dispensing the law all this while. You have been applying the law. In modern societies like ours, adherence with and applying the law brings the connotation that justice is being done. That’s it. Justice is a connotation. It is not real. It is a corollary of the application of the law by the court or judge. The real justice will only be seen when we all die.”
“The law is not always just. Take the land acquisition law for example. How just is a law which permits the government to force a landowner to surrender his land to the government? But if the law is applied and the court imposes a suitable compensation to be paid to the landowner, the perception is that justice is done, but is it really done?” I postulated.
“My God”, the Judge said. My opponent was cringing in his seat. “I have never thought about it that way, thank you for telling me,” the Judge said, his eyes brightened up a bit.
We continued to chat for a bit after that. I was telling him that jurisprudentially, I belonged to the positivist school of jurisprudence. I believe that the law and morality should be separated. After about 20 minutes, we excused ourselves. As we were going out from his chambers, the judge said, “Have a good life, both of you.”
We thanked him. That was the last time I appeared before that particular judge. Two or three months later, he rocked the judiciary with his resignation. The reason for his resignation rocked the whole Malaysia and even the world. But life goes on in this country of ours. Nothing ever changed. People like this judge just disappear from the map and from our memory.
I last met him at an event in Subang Jaya some months ago. He was still his jovial, friendly self. And he looked much happier. May God bless him with a long and healthy life as well as peace of mind.
Fast forward to the present.
When Justice Ariff Yusof (he was then a Judicial Commissioner) dismissed Gobind Singh Deo’s suit against the Speaker of the Parliament for suspending him (Gobind), many articles were written and posted on the Net about it. Justice Ariff was questioned why he did not follow the Federal Court’s decision in one of the Perak Mentri Besar constitutional circus. The Federal Court had in one of those cases held that the court could review the decision of a Speaker.
Under the law, a decision of a higher court is binding on a lower court. Thus the decision of the Federal Court (which is the highest court in the land) would be binding on the High Court (where Justice Ariff sits).
In dismissing Gobind’s suit against the Speaker of Parliament, Justice Ariff applied the clear wording of the law as stated in the Federal Constitution, which says:
“The validity of any proceedings in either House of Parliament or any committee thereof shall not be questioned in any court.”
Justice Ariff opined that while the Federal Court recognised the power of the court to question whether an act of the Legislative Assembly has any legal basis or otherwise, any act of the Assembly which is supported by any legal basis would be immune from such scrutiny.
In all the articles written about his decision on the net, Justice Ariff was vilified by all and sundry, especially by the supporters of DAP or the Pakatan Rakyat. Some even called him stupid. Some others even questioned his impartiality.
Last week, in yet another high profile case, Justice Ariff held that MACC did not have the power to interrogate witnesses or potential witnesses after office hours. He then ruled that MACC’s action in interrogating a potential witness at night was illegal and ordered compensation to be assessed and paid to the victim.
In doing so, Justice Ariff was of course interpreting the law as it is stated in the MACC Act. That Act says any person served with an order shall attend for examination and shall continue to do so “from day to day until the examination is completed” [section 30 (3) (a) of the MACC Act].
As the words “day to day” was not defined by the Act, Justice Ariff applied the literal meaning to the word and came to the conclusion that MACC does not have the right to force any person to give statement at night. Justice Ariff applied the law as he understands it. He applied the law as it is worded.
Many articles were also written about this decision, whether in the mainstream mass media or the net. The IGP made some statement which effectively ridiculed Justice Ariff’s decision. The chief of MACC, while saying that MACC would abide by the ruling, was also sulking and whining like some small girl whose lollipop has been taken away.
This time the Pakatan Rakyat supporters hailed Justice Ariff as a hero of sorts. He was seen as a learned judge who protects fundamental liberties. All the vilifications he received just after Gobind’s case were quickly forgotten.
But, as I have said at the start of this article, there is no justice in this world. There is always one side which would say justice has not been served. My fellow blogger Rocky posted an article on his blog about Justice Ariff’s decision. He somewhat said that Justice Ariff’s decision is weird. Exactly, this is how he puts it:
“Well, I agree with blogger Syed Akbar Ali that in this case, the Court has acted really weird.”
Apparently, the Scotland Yard, ICAC and Interpol could take statements at night. So, why not MACC? I must confess I do not know whether that is true. And I do not know what the law governing those bodies provide in terms of taking witness statements. I would also refrain from analysing whether MACC is comparable to all those bodies in terms of performance and ethics.
Whatever it is, Justice Ariff’s decision will be appealed by the Attorney General. So, let’s not go into the merit of it for the time being.
The point is the comments made under Rocky’s article. This time, Justice Ariff is again vilified, especially by commentators who are obviously pro-government. One of the commentators noted that Justice Ariff was a former PAS legal advisor. He then concluded that “something is not right.” Basically he was insinuating that Justice Ariff was being dishonest.
Another commentator asked whether Justice Ariff had any problem with the MACC. Perhaps the most unfair comment was this:
“Param Tak Suara said…
So how much did Karpal pay the judge?”
A judge’s good work will only last and be appreciated until his next decision which is unfavourable to the relevant party. That is obvious. Many of us have somewhat forgotten how Justice Ariff had conducted himself in accordance with the best tradition of the judiciary. When the Nizar v Zambry case was fixed for hearing before Justice Ariff, he quickly made it known to all parties that he was a PAS legal advisor. He then invited arguments on whether he should disqualify himself. He later disqualified himself from hearing that case after listening to all parties interested.
That was how conscientious Justice Ariff was.
In Gobind’s case, he ruled against Gobind. What did that say of Justice Ariff’s impartiality, considering that he was a PAS advisor? And now in the MACC case, he applied the law as he understands it. In doing that, he held against the MACC, and consequently the government.
To half of the world, he dispensed justice in all those cases. To the other half, he was a dishonest and partial Judge.
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