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Now who was the judge who was photographed vacationing in NZ with someone whose case he was hearing?

Probably Kalimulah changed his mind....
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Politics and the judiciary

Judges sit as oracles of the law despite their lack of mandate due to their apolitical nature. Their neutral stance gives them the legitimacy to mould the law. However judges like the law do not exist in a political vacuum.

Today that vacuum is filled with compounds manufactured by two primaries namely Messers. Mahathir and Messers. Pak Lah & Co. Their composites swathe the politics in Malaysia.

The independence of the judiciary however was designed to withstand such compounds. Its tapestry is tightly strewn so that only legal reasoning can prevail. However one may detect a faint leak in this tapestry. It may not be obvious at first but a legitimate deduction is present for anyone willing to follow the backward reasoning [decide first prove later] of the courts; back to politics. The key is to look at some current judicial issues as a whole.

Taking this view one can perhaps infer a delineation of two teams; the Gopal Sri Ram / Pak Lah team vs. the Augustine Paul / Mahathir team.

The first instance of this leak comes from Gopal Sri Ram’s inference of corruption by Tun Daim and Halim Saad. The wider inference is that Tun Daim who inturn had Tun Mahathir’s patronage is corrupt and thus has no standing to lay the same claims on Pak Lah’s government. It is uncharacteristic for a judge to lay such a claim on persons not parties to the trial. The score now is 1-0.

The second instance comes from Augustine Paul rebuking Gopal through stare decicis. Stare decisis et non quieta movere, meaning to stand by decisions and not disturb that which is settled. This means that the lower court is bound by the decisions of the higher court even though they may be wrong.

This is counter intuitive to common logic, for a judge to be bound to a wrong. Still the courts hold dearly to this principle for the sake of certainty and public confidence in a judiciary that speaks with one voice [though it may be wrong – a certainty is a certainty].

Gopal’s refusal is quite akin to Lord Denning’s refusal in the UK. An illustrious judge though he was, going against the stare decicis rule was called his one man crusade.

This accords to the reasoning often given by Pak Lah when he deals with many of his detractors for example in the Sothinathan issue. So the weapon used in politics are the same as the ones in law though under a different guise. Wrongs are irrelevant what is important is seeming good.

So here Augustine silences [so he thought] Gopal, and the score is 1-1.

The third instance is the Sukma trial reopening. No one wanted it, not even the convict. No one except Gopal. This brilliant move enabled him to hit two birds with a stone. First he was able to follow Augustine’s advice and go against him at the same time. You see, follow the higher Federal court he did. It’s just that he followed the former bench [filled with Mahathir’s detractors who released Anwar] not the current bench of Mahathir supporters. Though the former bench has retired their laws live on.

Gopal, suddenly stabbed by the sword of justice, took a strand in the release of Anwar which questioned the veracity of Sukma’s confession and insisted that he could not ‘fold his arms and close his eyes while injustice walked by’. The timing for such a profound realization is quite suspect.

This allows team Gopal/Pak Lah the following benefits. First, it infers that under Mahathirs regime the police could force out confessions and cause black eyes. The wider inference is that this may have been demanded of them by Mahathir. The second is that Anwar is allowed to crawl back into the penumbra of lime light, what better way to discredit Mahathir than to let him be distracted by his old nemesis. At any level, at least this charade diverts the attention of the Malaysian public away from the core issues. Finally it’s a good feeling to give Augustine a good taste of his own medicine.

Team Gopal/ Pak Lah lead. The match though is not over yet.

Mrs. Blair was brought akin to a hired gun to find a smoking gun that would lay claim to corruption under the Mahathir regime. She was feted with a seven series BMW and a plethora of security personnel courtesy of Wisma Putra. A good try but the shot was parried by the Federal Courts [Augustine & Co.]. Not all wasted since Anwar managed a good chat with her in the purview of the press.

The ball as they say is round and one really can’t tell a winner at this point but one inference may be clear. The political tango has ventured to new pastures. The one hallowed halls of the judiciary reeks a political stench.

So what if the syed were to go to ACA?
At the end of the day,the result will still be the one as usual-Sweep everything under the nice persian carpet.

oracle: thanks for thy articulate thesis on the Judiciary goings-on.
I think this is POSITIVE for the country -- at least ONE of the 4 Estates is being seen to being Rehabilitated. I don't hold much hope for The Executiove, Legislature and Media to be getting any better after 22 years of downgrades and abuse, with much connivance by the players.
The 4th Esate -- Media-- "seem" to be freer at the moment, BUT it's still the idiots-players acting in tandem to the orchestra conductor -- they are led by survival instioncts, not out of love for the profession, and hence this "sunny" environ is an illusion,not reality, hence my saying "seems".

JEFF OOI says: Desi, rightly or wrongly, I can't help reading from the same chapter as you are.

Back to the Judiciary, there are Other cases pending which add to PakLah's score card -- Tajuddin Ramli being sued millions by MAS; RHB case in progress where evidence was given that the Bank lost RM500million from financing Omega share buys (in the names of 5 individuals, with one linked to an MCA Youth leader promoting Eat, Drink&Be Merry policy!) and now, possible "re-opening" of case against Eusoffe Chin himself as he was shown to be clearly holidaying with lawyers who had cases pending in his courts...WELLDOCUMENTED by Malaysiakini.
I hope the saying "What goes around comes around" finds the right players within the circle.
There is some HOPE yet.

22 Questions for Dr. Mahathir appeared in the Edge Newspaper toady.

http://www.theedgedaily.com/cms/content.jsp?id=com.tms.cms.article.Article_ef644d6e-cb73c03a-1d1082f0-17b59680

Take a look !

Yes Jeff, there are 22 we should question back TDM. As I have said earlier, it is indeed peculiar to see people continuing to ask Pak Lah 4 questions whereas we can ask back far more questions to TDM. I recall reading The Star quoting TDM as saying 'I want to make things right'. Wow.. this man is so egoistic because he need to fix himself first before others!

Perhaps, someone can raise these 22 questions to TDM in the Perdana Global Peace Panel Session today on June 21, from 9.30am - 1.30pm.

He should have made them right before he left office.

One thing he did fix right though before he left office. It's something only he could undo. ie. to make English eventually the language of science and mathematics in this country.

my humble opinion:

Rome was not built in a day.

so i don't think the problem is solely on the 'mismanagement' (if any) done in the last two years.

it's good the carpet is unfolding and the dirt is being revealed. i notice a peculiar lack of discussion on project mahathir aka projecr ic in sabah which directly contributed to umno there becoming the single biggest party in the sabah state legislature... except in malaysiakini.

I have always maintained that this man is uffering from the legacy syndrome. Many of the things that he wants answers from the present administration, he must look into the mirror and ask with clear conscience, are these problems the creations of the current administration, although, I hesitate to state that I do not think highly of the present administration, but all the same, the problems were inherited as someoone correct;ly pointed out that Rome was not built in a day. For 22 years, things are allowed to rot. You cannot stash the blame on the present administration. Having said this, I can find only one mitgating ground is the effort to reverse the medium policy of having English, even allowing this, why was it done at this late state whilst you had the power to stay the course, when you were PM? Please go back to the early days when he was claimbing the political ladders, he did say this in the 1969 General Election in Kubang Pasu that with the non-Malay support he will win and look what happened he lost to PAS candidate. Perhaps, he realised the folly of this utterance and changed for the better. Of course, being the number one, you wan t the country to be united and so be it. But you allowed money-politics to continue and "cried" over it on several ocassions-- croc's tears in today's context!

Now that yopu have retired, allow the successor the chance to correct the follies.... we have 22 years on the March of follies... let's correct these follies and bring the country to sanity and back to what the founding fathers had in their vision for this country... a multi-racial and multi-religious and a secular country and not one that ias pronunced by you as an Islamic country because the Constitution has said so that it is secular!

syedhs

You said... it is indeed peculiar to see people continuing to ask Pak Lah 4 questions whereas we can ask back far more questions to TDM

True. But you need to compartalise the two issues. The most current should be addressed FIRST... and that is, the 4 questions.

Otherwise, you dilute the priorities.

DrM's questions are important but for the pressnt, it is history..

error report

"But you need to compartalise the two issues"

please read as

as"But you need to compartmentalise the two issues.."

To Mr. Frank and Honest,

There are no two issues here. There is only ONE issue. That is the future of Malaysia.

Both questions for Abdullah Badawi and Tun Mahathir are intertwined and one cannot fully understand the answers given by the Abdullah Badawi Government without first knowing the rationale behind the actions of the previous administration.

Without the past, we can never have a future. So let Mahathir answer the questions posed to him first and then we can better judge the answers given by the present government.

Or is it Stars Wars that we are watching here ?

f&h, i've to stand on a different side for this one...
let's not lose sight of the big picture. while we may be interested in seeing aab put everything on the table for scrutiny, old mah is not asking the 4 questions for the sake of transparaency or accountability or the interests of the like of you & i.
we are not witnessing a game of judge and jury. this is a political game. i have no doubt old mah aims to get rid of aab and i fully believe if aab is replaced by one of old mah's men, we'll have double servings of his status quo, and more. we don't want that. whatever is aab's weaknesses, let us deal with aab our ways. not by old mah's hands. old mah is the reason for many of the ills in our country today. if we nod our approval every time he seems to be speaking for the righteous, we are just allowing ourselves to be lured into giving him another chance to show you his true colour. i say: no thanks! old mah is not going to speak for me. period. this is personal.

don't let a devil who sings like an angel fools you.

Here Here !

//it's good the carpet is unfolding and the dirt is being revealed. i notice a peculiar lack of discussion on project mahathir aka projecr ic in sabah which directly contributed to umno there becoming the single biggest party in the sabah state legislature... except in malaysiakini.//

R u aware that why suddently "M Project" issued was brought up at this point of time?

Somebody must be carefully unfolding the edge of the carpet a little bit,so that the dirt released could make the doctor sneeze and then keep quiet.

teh-o, i think i know what you are driving at but i don't quite buy that. for 2 reasons at least. the person who spilled is from pbs - arguably the biggest political victim of project-m. 2ndly, this is bad dirt for umnoputras to sling at each other because it'll stick to everyone who benefitted from it.

teh-o and isk refer.

One or both of you may be right -- to mem, it's of NO significance whatever the motive behind this revelation of IDs being sold to foreigners, whether from Indonesia, Togo, China or timbuktree! Treason is lOuder here than the alleged sales of sand to Singapore and use of airspace over Johor by Sin-land military aircraft and I hope the "traitors" are speedily brought to face the full force of the Law. Pak Lah, ACT now! And this is a Citizen's appeal, maybe not a Tun, nevertheless equally CONcerned. Mr PM -- No more Elegant silence!:(