Comment
Letter from Pulau Tikus
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Comment
Letter from Pulau Tikus |
The Prime Minister’s Farewell THE PRIME MINISTER has announced his leaving office in March, this year. Memories of his regime will not be pleasant; there was hardly any difference between the harshness of the Mahathir rule and his. But it is probably a more despicable regime for charging Anwar Ibrahim for sodomy. We recall that he was one of those UMNO members to join Anwar Ibrahim’s Partai Keadilan, disgusted with the false charge of sodomy and the black eye. It was a period when the ungrateful and inhumane treatment of immigrants, the use of RELA - the thuggish group of "law enforcers", and the denial of the rights of the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak continued. There was no drop in the arrests, police baton charges and water cannon assaults. Blogs, petitions, and candle light vigils were a security threat. The arrest of Ronny Liu MP, for “obstructing a government servant” that had happened one year before, defined even more clearly the comic\bully image of the regime. There was complete freedom for right wing and pro-government demonstrators to shout abuse at meetings deemed to be anti-government and to disrupt them. A government running amok should not astonish. Right from the beginning, there was no statement from the prime minister or anyone in authority that the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary - destroyed by prime minister Mahathir - would be respected and the judicial power restored to the courts. |
| That
the
separation of powers, ended by prime minister Mahathir to
establish his dictatorship, would not be revived was arrogantly
demonstrated by the appointment of Zaki, the legal adviser of UMNO and
of its disciplinary committee, as the
chief justice. This
chief
justice talks like a politician, like a headmaster. Those who are
hardworking will be rewarded; "measures" will be taken against judges
who do not perform; judges should write shorter and simpler
judgments; he will speed up cases, and so on and on. That latest act of
his is the appointment of 14 judicial commissioners, not judges. So the
14 are only civil servants on trial. If the chief justice wants to
demonstrate that the public perception of him as an UMNO boss, apponted
to supervise the administration of justicde whip in hand, he must
restore the system of
courts that was destroyed by Dr Mahathir and his
nominees. Until that is done , he will not be respected. Under the present government, contempt for the courts continues, recently underlined by the adjournment of the trial of Raja Pertra Kamardin because the assistant director of Interpol National Centre, Bukit Aman, a witness, rudely absented himself without explanation. How then do we sum up the regime? Perhaps Mr Justice Ian Chin's letter says it best of all. The Sabah judge,who resigned on 29 November 2008, announed that he no longer enjoyed acting as a judge since 2007. He continued: “Suffice for me to say that all too often I found myself in circumstances where I had to make a stand which may be regarded as in defiance to a directive or instruction from my superior, which was very stressful to me.” This letter speaks volumes. What of the future? One of the prime minister’s farewell “reforms” is the establishment of a judicial appointments commission (JAC), a joke of a proposal which chills with its cheek. Four “eminent persons” will be in the commission. The government is free to amend the Act as it pleases. The Act arms the executive with legal power to appoint judges, confirming that the principle of the separation of powers is anathema to the regime. Professor Shad Saleem Faruqi thinks that the JAC is uncontitutional and that it affected the rights of Sabah and Sarawak. He points that the JAC does not appoint judges but that itis only a reccomendatory body. The Sabah Justices of the Peace Council have also noted the violation of the provisions of the Consitution providing for Sabah and Sarawak to be involved. The Fernandez case The acquittal in the scandalous Irene Fernandez case has given rise to a chorus of cheer about an improvement in the courts. In fact it was nothing of the sort. The notes of the proceedings put before the appeal court were in such a mess that the DPP found himself obliged to tell the court he had decided not to fight the appeal. That is how Irene Fernandez came to gain her freedom after 18 years of going to court. Landslide at Bukit Antarabangsa As of habit, it was announced that no more hill projects would be approved. Just after the Highland Towers disaster, they made noises about "no more such projects", soil tests, etc. The truth is that developers are big donors to party funds; as long as politicians kow-tow to them, all talk will be just talk. |
| Jalan
Silibin It was good news that the family of the late DAP leader Patto has rejected the proposal to rename Jalan Silibin with Jalan Patto, out of respect, they explain, for the residents of the area who had opposed the elimination of Jalan Silibin. DAP should remember that the Labour Party, when it ran George Town passed a resolution that no road names were to be changed and that if any names were favoured with perpetuation they were only to be given to newly constructed roads. Back in Penang we have another example of a wilful forgetting of history; an MCA leader wants Weld Quay to be renamed Xiamen Road. Not only is he unaware of that resolution but he seems not to have heard that George Town is now a UNESCO heritage site. Women Barbers Four barber shops out of six in Cintra Street will be closing shop. According to Winnie Yeoh, writing in The Star, there were ten such salons but that business suffered from the invasion of unisex and Indian rivals. Lingam sauce Lingham’s Sauce. A reader in The Star wrote that she lived in Penang 30 years and did not know it was owned by the Yeohs. The family should be proud of this marathon sauce which was sold as far back as 1947 by the Singapore Cooperative Stores Society.# |
| Sea gardens  Developers, emboldened by lack of comment on their claim to 'private' beaches, are now building gardens right out of the sea Haven't they been warned that everything, from the beach stretching out to the sea, belongs to the state? And what if the public picnics in that garden?  The current fashion: no trees at roundabouts Go to the top |
|
LESTARI HERITAGE NETWORK
www.lestariheritage.net for urban conservation |
| |
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CLICK Hands off the Bar In Search of Gold Khor Seow Hooi Letters from Pulau Tikus M K Rajakumar Malayan Democratic Socialism MNP & Dato Onn Ng Kim Heoh Strange Irons Visiting Tanjong |
| _____________________ The Penang File Issue 63 |