Friday 21 September 2007

Judgment Fixing Scandal: The Farcical and Irresponsible Reaction of Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail

Read here on LimKitSiang Blog

Read earlier articles posted HERE and HERE and HERE

New Straits Times reported:
Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, however, said he was " getting FURTHER opinion on the matter and studying OTHER information in the video clip".

Gani said the lawyer was in a monologue over his mobile phone and it was unclear who he was talking to. "There is no clear reference that he was talking to a top judicial officer," he said.

EXCERPTS: MP Lim Kit Siang writes in his blog :

The comments by the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail that “no criminal offence appears to have been committed” in the Lingam Tape and that senior lawyer V.K.Lingam “was in a monologue over his mobile phone and it was unclear who he was talking to” were most outrageous and raise important questions, viz:
• his understanding of and commitment to judicial independence, integrity and accountability; and

• his fitness to continue as Attorney-General.
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Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail

How can the chief legal officer of the government try to minimize the gravity of the judicial misconduct exposed by the Lingam Tape and shirk off his responsibility by claiming that Lingam was in a monologue as “There is no clear reference that he was talking to a top judicial officer”, when Anwar Ibrahim’s allegation that Lingam was talking to Chief Justice Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim sometime in 2002 when he was Chief Judge of Malaya was corroborated by the contents of the conversation?

Forty-eight hours have passed and neither Ahmad Fairuz nor Lingam had denied that there was such a telephone conversation between them, which would be the first reaction of anyone to a doctored video clip.

Ahmad Fairuz was contacted the same afternoon of Wednesday when Anwar made public the video recording, but his personal assistant relayed the message that the Chief Justice wanted to have a look at the video before saying anything.

But Ahmad Fairuz had been in ex communicado in the past two days, although he would have no difficulty in accessing it on the Internet, as it was put up on Malaysiakini almost instantly the same day (recording over 4,000 hits since), as well as on many blogs and the Bar Council website. One Youtube site which uploaded the clip registered 23,150 hits in one day.

It is also most noteworthy that Gani had NOT challenged the authenticity of the video recording of the telephone conversation.

What is mind-boggling is that the Attorney-General should be so complacent as to find nothing improper or offensive in it and cannot see the grave judicial misconduct crying out for attention and which have plunged the country into the latest chapter of a long catalogue of crisis of confidence in the judiciary in the past two decades since the 1988 Judicial Onslaught.

If the Attorney-General assumes the stance that no criminal offence is disclosed in the Lingam Tape and that it was only a monologue of Lingam , how can Malaysians expect the Prime Minister to get proper and quality legal advice from the chief legal officer of the government on what he should do for the good of the country and future generations?

The country (is) getting a double whammy with another value-added scandal of an Attorney-General who refuses to see or lift his finger to save the country from the latest crisis of confidence in the judiciary in the country?

COMMENTARY:

MUST READ !!! From Lawyer Manjeet Singh Dhillon. Read here for more

".. ...On reflection it has dawned that the AG has actually missed the point - why am I not surprised - of the revelations.

No one - and least of all me [I know better don't I, AG?] - expected you to rush off and prosecute anyone.

A first year law student would be aware of the burden of proof and all the other crud thrown out that warrants a criminal prosecution.

No, Mr. AG, it is more than that - it is what is insidiously displayed as being done in that clip - the manipulations, favour-granting, power-grabbing fixing up of things.

It is the systematic dismantling of established institutions that ensure the well-being, progress and stability of a nation - OURS!

Did you miss all that?

The nation has a psyche, in case you did not know.

Did you actually direct your DPPs to look for offences in that clip?

I could have given you an answer in 5 seconds - time it takes to utter one word.

But then you wouldn't ask me, would you?

No, Mr. AG, look at the Bigger picture. THE BIGGER PICTURE! [See I am shouting!]

Look at the circumstances prevailing in Malaysia since the Salleh Abas fiasco [ok, that was before your time], look at what has happened since - the VK Lingham holiday abroad, link it to the personalities, run the tape forward, look at the State of Denmark, dig deeper, ask, inquire, ruminate, reflect, consider the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary, the role that you, we, all have to play.

Is it the tree for the woods or the wood for the trees - see the drift of my posting? - or have I as usual run ahead of you?

The clip, Mr. AG, showed s*** hitting the ceiling fan. And that is not good.

Splattered s*** gets everywhere and covers the good, bad and ugly equally.

Do I need more parables, allegories, fables to illustrate the point, the drift of where we are going, what is happening to us, as a people and a nation. Or we all so blase, so satiated, so disgusted, so disappointed, so disillusioned that nothing bothers us anymore.

Do we, must we, all wait for the crud to dry and fall off?

After all smells, even that of a corpse, dissipate over time.

Haven't you, Mr. AG, missed the point of it all?

But then. Mr. AG. you are getting a further opinion. And that is good.

Perhaps you will post it on the forum for us to read and review - like this clip.

And why am I not surprised!!

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