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Chairman of the Judicial Commission which is meant to be an independent and impartial body, should be the leader of the Opposition in Parliament

Amen.

And if that's really too much for this 'democratic' country of Malaysia, it should be at least to the fact that Prime Minister should only be allowed to put forward his nomination while the parliament votes for the appointment decision.

What role did the ruling coalition have to play in this fiasco? Who was the leader of that coalition then?

The colonel-in-chief got a Tun to avoid future prosecution and review and so did the political survivor Tun Dr Mahathir just as he retired.

I apology for being 2 days late for commenting on the "TUN" topic.
100% agree that Musa is really deserving this honour, but we are now left to wait for another vacancy before Samy Vellu can beg for one. I say it again, with all his big time screw ups, he really need a "TUN" ship to cover his ass, once he steps down from politics.
This unfortunately means, he will hang on to screw us up further.

Until the Medicine Men(MM) come into play, most Bolehland Prime Minister are following the 1st world rule not to interfere with the economy and juridiction.

so...? soon we will have Tun LKY and Tun Samy...if they leave their parties?

So easy to a be a Tun? We have too many datos now..are we going the same way with Tuns?

My guess ...yes

It will be many more years to dismantle Mahathir's legacy. He curbed the power of sultans, the judiciary, Umno elections and just about everything else.Next on the list is for reform is the education system. More powers should be given to school administrators and PTA's to decide on what form of education they should provide to students e.g they can choose whether to follow the malaysian syllabus/singapore /malaysian chinese schools /British/american etc with emphasis on BM as one of the subjects. Also, children should begin schooling at the age of 5 and not 7 as is practised now.

In this context, please read "May Day for Justice" by that famous journalist for the full pathetic way the judges were dismissed.Some of those involved in that disgraceful episode are dead and gone but some are still around.It will remain as a permanent blot in our legal history.The shame will follow those involved in the plot to dismiss those judges for administering justice as it should, without fear and fafour to their graves .History will never forget and forgive them . Will God?
ksn

Perhaps Amir Muhammad , the director of documentary 'Lelaki Komunis Terakhir', should make a documentary movie on "The Last Few Good Men" and there is no reason for the govt to ban this movie as Mahathir is no longer the PM.

In fact, Pak Lah should give some govt funding and access to the govt resources to make this documentary movie.

That's why we need a stronger opposition coaltion party.

I concur absolutely with The Honourable Justice George Seah. As one can see TDM has many parallels with President George Bush. Both stole the elections to become head of state. Both are dishonest and manipulative except that TDM is worse than Bush. He manipulated to remove the LP and five Supreme Court judges which Bush did not do. SO TDM's call for people against war to be leaders is hypocrisy and incomplete. Leaders must also be anticorrupt, honest and respect meritocracy and independence of the judiciary and the press. Dont be a pot calling kettle black.

The starting point where George begins omits the real beginning of the story when UMNO was declared illegal in 1987. He 'forgot' to mention that it was a court action by the UMNO 11 that led to the high court decision making UMNO illegal in the first place! The reason why the UMNO 11 then lodged an appeal is because KuLi did not want to be remembered as the person who's supporters' actions led to UMNO being declared illegal in 1987! In fact, Ku Li continues to be haunted by the fact as he and his team were poorly advised by their lawyers on their actions, including the CURRENT UMNO SEC-GEN among others! This is why Ku Li chose eventually to disband S46 to return to UMNO.

More importantly though, the idea of having the Opposition Leader as head of the Judicial Commission is if anything, a little naive. It may be acceptable to some here whilst LKS is still leader of the opposition, but demographically speaking, the future Opposition leader would be the PAS leader after the last election. So, would people be as happy with Hj. Hadi Awang, or his clone, champions of Hudud Law, being head of the Judicial Commission?

In addition, having then the head of the Bar Council be deputy head of such a Commission is worse than the past scenario of having colonels judging the generals, it would be akin to having Leutenants judging everyone from Captains (Magistrates) through to Generals (Supreme Court Judges)!!

The Bar Council does not have any legitimate right, constitutionally or democratically, to be involved in the Judicial Commission and with the conflict of interest involved, should hardly be considered as parties involved in leading it!

So, is this really the writings of a former Supreme Court judge, or is someone putting words into this learned man's mouth? Someone from the Bar Council perhaps?

Sorry, I meant to write "demographically speaking, the future Opposition leader would be the PAS leader after the next election"

Malaysians must never forget the Judicial crisis of 1988 in which Datuk George Edward Seah Kim Seng, Tun Salleh Abas ( Monday 8/8/88 ), our own Lord Denning - the late Tan Sri Datuk Seri Dr. Eusoffe Abdoolcader ( Jan 11 1996 ) and other eminent Malaysian judges were made to pay a price for being courageous.

Jeff, "May Day For Justice" by Tun Salleh Abas himself explains this judicial crisis in a very detailed manner. Reading the book made me lose respect for so many of our politicians and gain respect for the unsung heroes of the day, many of whom the younger generation have never heard about.

The sacking of the Lord President and other fellow judges in 1998 marked the blackest day in the Judiciary's history, and it has never fully recovered from that fall. Yesterday's New Sunday Times ran an instructive interview aith a retired Justice Shaikh Daud who gave some good views sbout formation the Judicial Commission. NegaraKU salutes George Seah for recording history in the truest manner possible against some past and present politicians' manipulating its writing to continue the myth that is "Malaysia" only serving the interests of powerful politicians and their cronies. We have NOT arrested the decline since 1988. May the wise ones trace the true culprits.

Oops, a typo...agin! Sacking in 1988...NOT 1998...my bad.

This revelation by Datuk George Seah (Poor man, no wonder he has remained only a Datuk!) is simply EARTH SHATTERING! I only question the good Datuk why has it taken so long for him to reveal the real situation as it was then? Maybe there was still genuine fear when the King was still around? Nevertheless, still better late than never or else we will never know the truth!

It was just like any palace plot to remove those good and honest officials who stood in the way of the wicked King. The King arms the next guy down the line with a sword and his royal backing plus a few selected underlings and hey presto, trumped up charges are hurled at the officials and subsequently executed! Henry VIII of England did it, Emperors in China did it and why shouldn't a PM of Malaysia do it?

Back to the present. What are we going to do about it? What can we do to undo such an injustice committed against 6 judges of the Supreme Court when the Supreme Court was illegally usurped by the Executive? Are these six to die from the pages of history with such false and ignominous "shame"?

I say that a Royal Commission be set up to investigate and to make a report on this shameful episode of Malaysian history when our democracy was so shamelessly undermined! Even if the culprits and perpetuators of this infamous incident go unpunished, history must be corrected and our future generations must know the truth and never again allow our democracy to be surreptiously stolen like a thief in the night!

This revelation by Datuk George Seah (Poor man, no wonder he has remained only a Datuk!) is simply EARTH SHATTERING! I only question the good Datuk why has it taken so long for him to reveal the real situation as it was then? Maybe there was still genuine fear when the King was still around? Nevertheless, still better late than never or else we will never know the truth!

It was just like any palace plot to remove those good and honest officials who stood in the way of the wicked King. The King arms the next guy down the line with a sword and his royal backing plus a few selected underlings and hey presto, trumped up charges are hurled at the officials and subsequently executed! Henry VIII of England did it, Emperors in China did it and why shouldn't a PM of Malaysia do it?

Back to the present. What are we going to do about it? What can we do to undo such an injustice committed against 6 judges of the Supreme Court when the Supreme Court was illegally usurped by the Executive? Are these six to die from the pages of history with such false and ignominous "shame"?

I say that a Royal Commission be set up to investigate and to make a report on this shameful episode of Malaysian history when our democracy was so shamelessly undermined! Even if the culprits and perpetuators of this infamous incident go unpunished, history must be corrected and our future generations must know the truth and never again allow our democracy to be surreptiously stolen like a thief in the night!

art chan - I believe the number of TUNships is limited to 27 at any one time.
ET - are you suggesting that a Tunship confers immunity from prosecution?

at one time datoship was a very elusive title..only the honoured few and those with exemplary credential..select few..

but now we have so many datos..

who knows? one day Tunships awards may go the same way as datoship....

superjim...

don't waste any time with a royal commission.

RC came out with IPCMC...nothing came out of it..

Think it will be any different with the RC on this issue.??

Justice George Seah came out with his story..and I believe what he wrote.

I agree with art chan that someday in the not so distance future, (if the trend continue) particularly everyone would have a dato in front of their name and there would be alot of Tuns as well. (the TUNship might be limited to 27 now, but in Bolehland, everything can change with a blink of an eye)

Reasoning: Bolehman need to improve and having a title "should" represent "progress"...

The long and short of it all is that TDM screwed the Supreme Court judges and the Rakyat according to Justice George Seah and TS Ani Arope. Who else did TDM not screw except for the IPPs (YTL, Malakoff, Genting ets etc) who are his "hand in glove partners"?

Folks

Hear is another news rarely made into UMNO controlled press.

Tun Salleh Abas joined PAS, got elected in the Trengganu State Assembly.

What does this show?

It is not the Govt that Tun Salleh Abas was flabbergasted, it is the damn UMNO politics that strangled and made into a perversion of Malaysian parliamentary democracy. UMNO under Dr M was the most dictatorial, suppressing the judiciary, other races, and opposition parties. It is almost like a One Party State, which is like what you get in China, Cuba and North Korea, with the principle of freedom of speech being made into a joke.

What Justice Seah is not saying, to be politically correct, is the disturbing castration of democracy by UMNO and UMNO able to get away because of its expert manipulation of the racial politics of fear with the non-Malays cowed into silence, in one form or another and the Malays being falsely being made fearful of others... right up today.

Why would the highest and most respect Lord President joined politics of the Malay Opposition Party. Because of the sickening politics of the Malay ruling party in Govt, with powers unchecked, right up to this day, and abusing the reins of authority with absolute arrogance.

While Malaysians take self-therapy avenues such as on this blog to whine and whinge, and feeling good about it. When next election comes, they all go out and vote UMNO, MCA and MIC, and then continue to whine and whinge till the next election, and history repeats since 1957.

F&H, can't help it lah. There is no credible opposition till this very day. We have talked about this many times before and it will remain so for many more years to come.
The only hope is to vote in more opposition MPs to have a proper check and balance next time.

Somthing to share and chew over:

"What became of the Judiciary following Salleh?

It was downhill all the way…

It led the country’s leading judicious mind

The late Tun Suffian Hashim to lament in 2000:

“I wouldn’t like to be tried by today’s judges,

Especially if I am innocent.”*

*Quoted from a speech on March 10, 2000 that the former Lord President delivered at a Bar commemoration for the late Justice Tan Sri Wan Sulaiman.

F & H, I like your conclusion which I take as a challenge to all us to quit whining and whinging and do something about it. No viable opposition? Who are we? Do we uphold the same values? Do we want the same things? Maybe, since we all gravitate to the same site which is Jeff's, he represents whatever commonalities we might have. So, Jeff, how about registering the Jeffooi Party? You should start crafting a manifesto that we all can comment. Next election, we don't have to vote for Barisan.
On the other hand, inspite of all this shit, maybe this is as good as it gets...

"F&H, can't help it lah. There is no credible opposition till this very day. We have talked about this many times before and it will remain so for many more years to come.
The only hope is to vote in more opposition MPs to have a proper check and balance next time."

jan,
david also have no credible against goliath, so do moses against pharoah....dont be coward

Hi Jeff,

Just to clarify - actually the 5 part piece in the Malaysian Bar Council website is not a "recent expose" done by the Bar Council.

The articles were actually published in the Aliran monthly newsletters in 2004.

Part 1
http://www.aliran.com/oldsite/monthly/2004a/4m.html

Part 2
http://www.aliran.com/oldsite/monthly/2004a/5h.html

Part 3
http://www.aliran.com/oldsite/monthly/2004a/6f.html

Part 4
http://www.aliran.com/oldsite/monthly/2004b/7i.html

Part 5
http://www.aliran.com/oldsite/monthly/2004b/8k.html

I am surprised that there was no acknowledgement of this republication of the Aliran by the Bar Council though - perhaps an oversight on their part.

Nevertheless, it's good to remind those who may be too young to remember, as well as those who may have forgotten, of these important events in our nation's history.

Otherwise we may never learn from our mistakes.

"No viable oppositions".

!!!!!?
Come on, are your waiting for a saint that born 2006 years ago to lead oppositions?

And how about the stupid "devil and the deep blue sea" talks.

Vote opposition, balance the power and you will see political people fight to gain people trust, rather than fighting to gain monetary benefits.

Folks

The infighting in Umno begins. Mahathir accuses of Pak Lah stabbing on his back.

Read below:

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-06-07T154652Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-253210-1.xml

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (Reuters) - Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad accused the current prime minister on Wednesday of breaking a pact between them, signalling worsening relations between two of the ruling party's most powerful men.

In his most personal attack on his hand-picked successor, Mahathir also said he perhaps had a habit of choosing the wrong people, noting that many of them had ended up turning on him.

"I have held many people up only for them to stab me in my back...," Mahathir told reporters when asked if choosing Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had been his biggest mistake.

Mahathir retired in late 2003, handed power to Abdullah and pledged not to meddle in government. But he has been angered by several decisions of his successor, especially the recent scrapping of a planned bridge to neighbouring Singapore.

The project had been conceived near the end of Mahathir's 22-year reign but was scrapped in April because of Singapore's objections. At the time, Mahathir said the government had sold out Malaysian sovereignty and lacked "guts".

On Wednesday, at a news conference called to discuss an upcoming peace forum he is hosting, Mahathir returned to the attack and said Abdullah had promised him he would continue with major projects begun by the former government.

Mahathir said that on handing over power, he in return had promised Abdullah he would stay out of politics.

"But the incoming government not only did not do what was promised, in fact the incoming government reversed many of the decisions made...," the 80-year-old said, adding he felt hurt by suggestions he had spent huge sums of money on mega-projects.

"I chose him ... I expect a reasonable degree of gratefulness but instead I am told that I have indulged in mega-projects and that I have finished all the money in the country," he said.

Mahathir said he would remain a watchful critic of the government but would not work to topple his successor.

"I am not capable of doing that," said Mahathir, who still commands strong support within the main ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation, which can make or break prime ministers. But, he added, "I am watching."