Comment Triads and Traitors   from the digital notes of K L Chai

Clean judges IT WAS DURING the term of Dato Syed Hamid Albar as minister of justice that the term Lord President (of the supreme court) was relabeled  "Chief Justice" and the chief justices of each of the Malayan and the Borneo states "Chief Judge", creating a confounded confusion. The new chief justice (lord president) has threatened that he will not hesitate to remove any judge from office "if found to be corrupt". Now this seems to suggest that he has the power to discipline judges. Not so. The chief justice is only the presiding judge of the final court of appeal. Judges  are his equals and not recalcitrant schoolboys to be scolded by him. Many years ago, when the president of the Singapore Bar complained to the chief justice that a certain magistrate was unduly severe in fining traffic offenders Sir Alan Rose had to remind him of the fact. It is reported that the chief justice had said in his usual charming manner something like, "My dear fellow, I can't tell him off surely! We're all equal don't you know, except that he occupies a humbler chair. I'd tell your fellows to appeal, if I were you, don't you think?" In the past, lord presidents like Thompson, Azmi and Suffian took care not to step outside the boundaries of their powers and jurisdiction. It was only after their  time that a chief justice (lord president) transgressed the limits. This resulted in a conflict with the then chief judge (chief justice) of Malaya, who was then Tan Sri Abdul Hamid;  it created chaos in the registry. It engendered a mutual dislike that lasted until the removal of Tun Salleh Abbas in 1988. The legal world would have been happier  if the new chief  had gone back to basics by declaring unequivocally that he would continue in the tradition of his predecessors, to confine himself to presiding over the Federal Court and for the rest, to mind his own business. Triad danger THE MCA YOUTH CHIEF Ong Tee Keat is in trouble with the MCA big wigs for alleging that two MCA members are involved with triads. He had "tarnished the image of the Party."  If the MCA recalls its history it would not have been too agitated.  It is a well known fact that the MCA was instigated by the British colonial administrators and the Special Branch to form a counter weight to the Malayan Communist Party and to fill the gap in "Chinese representation". Britain, crippled by World War II and  facing financial ruin in running the expensive war against the communists, had to  turn to the Kuomintang elements for support: Lau Pak Khuan , head of the KMT and Wah Kee secret society, in the North and in the South, those moneyed men led by KMT Colonel H S Lee - all KMT diehards who never failed to attend Chiang Kai Shek's birthday celebrations. Tan Cheng Lock,  a Baba King's Chinese, who neither spoke nor understood a single word of Mandarin or Chinese dialect was invited to preside over this new association. MCA should also remember that some MCA men, high ranking officials of their respective secret societies have even been made tan sris and datos which fact demonstrates that there must be good secret society men as well as bad ones. There are many whose approach to life is birth marked by the precarious adventures of the heroes of the Water Margin  (or  All Men Are Brothers in the Pearl Buck translation). So why all the fuss over Ong Tee Keat's  "triad," a word which in our times means different things to different authors.  Perhaps the MCA in this case took the word to mean "gangsters"?

Evil intentions UNFAVOURABLE COMMENT on our success story continues to pour out of the printing presses of the West, no doubt inspired by envy and evil motives. The latest to display its prejudice and hurt our pride is the London "The Economist." Its critical survey of the Mahathir years has infuriated our guardian angels - the politicians in power. Ignoring the descant of praise for the retiring prime minister (hypocritical or otherwise) we hear loudly and clearly the main tune -   the continuing enthusiasm for wrapping this country in a dust cloud of ignorance. Anxious to protect our innocence, those in power do not think the  Internal Security Act watertight enough; so they wage a preventive war to shield the electorate from such evil influences as exposed tits in foreign magazines and weasel  words which hurt our highly sensitive, highly achieving society. If in the countries around us, in Nepal, Thailand and Lao satellite dishes are not controlled and are to be seen everywhere, they are sure signs of government laxity and even irresponsibility. Like SARS, evil intentions and spiteful motives must be kept out lest we fry in our high fevers. Meanwhile,  the frog remains safe and sound under its coconut shell. Traitors MANY PEOPLE go abroad and for a variety of reasons. Some to get work, some to open a satay bar or restaurant, others because they go with their children in  search of a  university because they cannot get into a local one.  Then there is the person who, in Shirley Geok-lin Lim's language,  "find it difficult to stand up and say its name; when to say one's identity is already to mark one as lesser than," for whom an exile begins. One such person who went abroad and got a job as a registrar in an Australian court was Richard Talalla. When he was appointed a judicial commissioner in 1990 the Bar Council worked itself up into a frenzy, producing a shameful and scurrilous editorial protesting at the appointment of a man who had run away from his country. And the poor man's crime was not even remotely comparable to that of George Washington who dastardly planned a rebellion against his King and country. James Boswell, Johnson's biographer, wrote of " that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest." Today the victim of the false patriots is Ng Yen Yen,  an MCA minister. Her crime? - obtaining an Australian PR while her children were studying in that country. You can guess why they are targeting her,  and you can bet your bottom dollar that those howling jingoes ride in the foreign Mercedes, wear foreign tailor made clothes and ties and send their kids abroad to expensive schools.#

A worthy cause Little Sisters of the Poor at Batu Lanchang, Penang

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_____________________ The Penang File Issue  28