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Comment
Letter from Pulau Tikus |
The Perak affair Article XVI, Clause (6) of the Perak Constitution reads: If the Menteri Besar ceases to command the confidence of the majority of the members of the Legislative Assembly, then unless at his request His Royal Highness dissolves the Legislative Assembly, he shall tender the resignation of the Executive Council. By all accounts the Mentri Besar requested a dissolution. The Sultan refused to dissolve the Legislative Assembly. What follows? Clause 6 provides that the MB shall tender the resignation of the Executive Council. But the Mentri Besar refused to obey the Constitution, he refused to resign, he threatened court action. There followed a furious denunciation of the Sultan. Summed up, the arguments in support of the MB are: The Sultan ignored the victory of the Pakatan alliance at the polls, he went against the wishes of the people, he favoured the UMNO opposition, he should have heard both sides together in argument instead of separately. If the MB, as a member of the Pakatan Alliance, believes that the UMNO administration has denied the rule of law and justice, what he has done is astonishing. If he was not happy with Article XVI Clause (6) he should have simply resigned and campaigned for its amendment to place the Sultan above the danger of being criticised for political bias. Instead he and his followers have chosen a feudal argument that their “lord” should do justice. These sorry events remind me of the outcry from the “progressives”, when Lim Kit Siang was denied entry into one of the Borneo states, that they should be denied control of immigration Another example of the way politics is conducted is the threat to sue the Sultan. Where did they get their law from? The amendments to the Constitution brought in by an angry Mahathir was to the effect that if anything was done by a Sultan in his personal capacity he could be sued e.g. if he owed someone money which he has failed to repay. |
| Article 183 of Federal Constitution: no
action, civil or criminal, shall be instituted against the Yang
di-Pertuan Agong or any of the Rulers of States in respect of anything
done or omitted to be done by him in his personal capacity except with
the consent of the Attorney General personally. The Perak Sultan, acting under the State Constitution, was only exercising his powers as a creature of statute and could not be said to be acting in a personal capacity. Was the Attorney General consulted? And was the Perak legal adviser (a senior post for lawyers in the legal service)? In the days past, the state has always acted on the advice of the state legal adviser; the federal government on the advice of the Attorney-General. The new MB of Perak has rushed off to London to consult a QC. Does that mean that he has sought and since rejected the advice of the state legal adviser? Elizabeth Wong The Elizabeth Wong story tells us something of the culture of her generation. This is the narcissistic generation of the Facebook, a world of self-indulgence, of self-centredness and self-love and the exposure of one’s “inner self”, where those with lap-tops publish photographs of themselves in various poses. It does not astonish that a Singapore TV celebrity tells her fans of her losing her virginity at 18 and her discovering pleasure in sex when but six years old. The public intimacy even extends to the preservation of videos of oneself in the nude in the computer. That Elizabeth Wong should have tumbled into an ugly situation where nude pictures of her were shown on the internet reveals her to be a naive and innocent person. PAS calls for an inquiry into her "morals". They should mind their own business and instead ask the question, will Bukit Lanjan, if tested a second time, elect one so naive and innocent to the state assembly? Suqiu again In August 1999, just before the 10th general election, a body called the Malaysian Chinese Organisations Committee made up of 13 Chinese organisations sent a petition (suqiu) to the prime minister. It set out ideas about the basic requirements of a just society. The petition was accepted by the Cabinet without objection. However, in a characteristic about turn, the prime minister said that accepting the petition would mean setting aside the constitution; Suqiu had defied the social contract. The Federation of Peninsular Malay Students (GPMS) after breakfasting with the Prime Minister submitted 100 demands on behalf of the Malays and threatened a rally of 100,000. There followed a series of events which raised emotions to a hysterical level. The Malaysian Youth Council, the Islamic Consumers Association and UMNO Youth called for support for the special rights of the Malays. The National Silat Federation of Malaysia was ready with three million silat fighters for "the cause". 300 Umno Youth members stormed the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall threatening to burn it down. |
| .But Mr P Ramakrishnan
of Aliran had read the petition and failed to
discover mention of the special rights and privileges of the Malays. Dr
Toh Kin Woon of Gerakan, pointed out that suqiu had only asked for the
eradication of poverty irrespective of race and had not asked for the
abolition of the special privileges of bumiputeras. As in the case of
Karen Armstrong’s “History of God” it was a fuss over nothing, but
inflammatory nevertheless. The memory of these dangerous games is prompted by the remarks of the UMNO Youth leader Khairy Jamaluddin who was recently interviewed by the magazine “Off he Edge”. His remarks on the suqiu incident alone reveal that right wing UMNO thinking has not changed since those days. He still describes suqiu as “demands” and seems not to have bothered after these past 10 years to find out the meaning of the phrase. If he did not have the time he should have recalled that suqiu had been properly described by then Information Minister Khalid Yaacob as a “petition.” He repeats the old lie of “demands that touch directly on the constitutional rights of bumiputeras”. He was part of the delegation to meet the suqiu people and to discuss the document, a meeting which “ended in the middle with a healthy dose of empathy for one another” and, further on, we read “we have to live with each other even if it means compromising...” And the compromise? “We got them to drop the seven sensitive points”. Legal The government continues to show it has no love of the rule of law by the appointment of Mr Justice Zaki as head of the Judicial Appointments Commission, the continued use of “on trial” judges called “judicial commissioners”, and giving the prime minister the last word. Raja Petra Kamaruddin sought to remove Mr Justice Augustine Paul (of the Anwar trial fame) from the panel of judges hearing one of his applications. That the judges heard argument then dismissed the application reflects the sorry state of the perception of justice in this police state. I recall that there was once when the great Lord Denning offered to step down, revealing that he had some shares in a bank involved in the case coming up before him. Counsel would not hear of it and the trial began. Privatising the mountain Mt Kinabalu has now fallen prey to the privateers of privatisation. Bills were nominal for eating and sleeping when the state government was in charge. Now, however, climbers are asked to pay exorbitant fees to create profits for the lucky companies. Like water before them, hills are now enrolled to create wealth for the private sector. If it had been proposed that Penang Hill be similarly surrendered to profit there would be sure to have been an outcry, but Sabah is silent. Beautify We remember they got rid of the historic bandstand that added character to the Esplanade, we remember they cemented part of the road to make some millennium something or other and then forgot all about it. When are these guys going to stop playing masak-masak? |
| Tanjong
Bungah Tanjong Bungah residents are protesting against Class 3 and 4 hillslope development projects  The form of protest? They adopted the ‘cacerolazo‘ or ‘cacerolada‘ of Latin America - a form of protest where a group of people bang on pots, pans and other utensils to draw attention to their cause. This was during a ‘Valentine’s Day‘ tea party to protest afainst development projects on steep hill-slopes. Some one hundred residents turned up in Chee Seng Garden in front of the Bolton Surin project, calling on the Chief Minister and the state government to stop the project for good. UMNO today Doesn’t the news from Ziimbabwe make us think of the 50 years of UMNO rule? The despairing cry of Tengku Ahmad Rithauddin, its discipline chairman, to dissolve the youth, wanita, putra, putri wings to solve problems rubs the message home. Gaza Israel’s merciless crushing of Gaza attracted shocked comments from all over the world but it is strangely ignored by the DAP and Gerakan people. We wonder why. Busybody It is reported that the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry will help in financial planning for families facing difficulties in their financial planning. This useless prattling is one more reason why the ministry should be abolished. Does any reader of this column know of an equivalent ministry anywhere else in the world? Reporting the police state Kugan is the 126th lockup death in 10 years. To a shocked public the minister had this to say: don’t regard criminals as heroes and policemen as demons This
cold-bloodedness is traditional among UMNO ministers. In 1979 Dr
Mahathir, then deputy PM, called for the expulsion of 76,000 boat
people
and for the shooting of new arrivals on sight. |
One year ago, supporters of the Hindraf 5 met to present flowers to the PM urging the release of the ISA detained lawyers. They were met with water cannon and tear gas from the F R U who arrested the “dangerous” petitioners. Police seized 20,000 copies of the Keadilan paper. Petaling Jaya’s representative to the Legislative Assembly, Hannah Yeoh, was barred from attending her school alumni dinner Bilik Sult Hishamuddin Rais’ “Bilik Sulit”, about an ISA victim under interrogation, played to a full house at Green Hall . Cheap Bill for the deployment of 3,376 police personnel during the Kuala Terengganu by-election: * Travelling and living allowance - RM2,700,000 * Foodstuff and accommodation - RM4,500,000 * Dried food and beverages - RM65,000 (Dried food is not included in “foodstuff” above?) * Communication and utilities - RM50,000 * Canopy rental - RM6,000,000 (Sounds like a good business, no? Some of these canopies even had airconditioning.) * Fuel and spare sparts - RM698,000 (Does this include helicopter fuel?) * Raw material and others - RM310,000 * Maintenance and minor repairs - RM830,000 (Doesn’t sound ‘minor’ to me! Helicopter maintenance included?) * Total expenditure incurred by rakyat - RM15,153,000 Comments in brackets are by Anil Netto .# Go to the top |
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 |
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| _____________________ The Penang File Issue 64 |