Bullshitting over separation of powers

I actually didn't really mind it when Anwar the other day said the MACC's investigation against CoA judge Nazlan was a violation of the separation of powers doctrine.

Anwar is after all a politician and because of that he should be allowed to bullshit, every now and then.

But when the Malaysian Bar said the same thing, I was like, what the fuck is wrong with them.

You can read their statement by clicking on its extracts here;

The Malaysian Bar further states that the MACC investigation violates the doctrine of separation of power and also undermine the independence of the judiciary, and is unconstitutional. 

I'm appalled because this is a statement made by people who were supposed to know the law and practicing it.

Even a student who took up constitutional law as his/her A-Level subject should know what separation of powers is really all about.

You all can even read it at Wikipedia here;

Separation of powers

and realise that there is no absolute separation of powers in any democratic system.

The whole point was for the executive, legislature and judiciary to check on each others so there would be no abuse of power by any of them.

And in doing so they could not avoid crossing each other's paths.

You can see that happening in the US, UK or any other countries claiming themselves as being democratic.

Now, MACC is a branch of the executive and the Bar is saying that it's interfering with the judiciary for initiating an investigation on a report that a judge has over RM1 million in his account, suspected to be derived from corrupt practices before he became a judge.

Is that really interfering with the judiciary?

Honestly, I don't think so because MACC is not even investigating the judge over an allegation of how he conducted himself as a member of judiciary.

Even if MACC is doing that, why not? All judges are incorruptible, is it?

Anyway, being investigated doesn't mean one is guilty. 

The Bar should know that....unless it believes otherwise because it has in the past deemed some people were guilty of something before those people were even convicted.

Yup, like what happened before and after the 2018 general election.

I didn't see the Bar going all out trying to convince Malaysians back then that someone is innocent until proven guilty.

Maybe that's why they are now talking about trial by media and public opinion.

Yeah right. Only now.

Okay, let's try putting it like this - if someone lodged a report saying that a judge had murdered someone before he was appointed as a judge, should the police investigate or should they let the judiciary handle the allegation on their own?

Bear in mind ya that the police is another branch of the executive. 

What if the judge that was being accused of the murder turned out to be the one who presided over the trial of the very same case and convicted someone else for the crime?

Should the guy that he found guilty be hung to death without the allegation even being investigated?

Again as far as separation of powers is concerned, should the MACC or the police, which are branches of the executive be allowed to investigate a member of parliament, which is the legislature if there is a report of him being involved in corruption or other crime?

Or is that yet another form of an interference over the sanctity of separation of powers doctrine?

I suggest you all ask those questions to any law student who have passed his/her constitutional law exam.

No need to ask those leaders of the Malaysian Bar as I think they would give you a political rather than  legal answer.

Rule against bias; clearing doubts about Judge Nazlan

Let me start by saying that I'm not a legal expert and I'm not here questioning a decision of the court.

I do have the LLB(Hons) but I have never practice law. A case of lost interest, actually.

However, I still remember what I learnt about the basic principles of laws such as the rules of natural justice, which among others emphasise on the importance of the rule against bias.

Now this was what happened yesterday;

Judge lodges report against Raja Petra for claim of RM1 mil from Jho Low

That's because Raja Petra wrote this;

Judge Mohd Nazlan being investigated for unexplained RM1 million in his bank account

For those who don't know Nazlan, he is the judge who was hailed as a hero by Pakatan people after he found Najib guilty in the SRC trial.

Raja Petra had in fact wrote a post on the profile of the judge;

Who is Muhammad Nazlan Mohd Ghazali?

Raja Petra has apparently got hold of some documents which embolden him to accuse the judge of being involved in corruption related to the 1MDB scandal when he was with Maybank prior to being called to the bench.

Nazlan was appointed as a Judicial Commissioner in 2015, before promoted to be a High Court Judge in 2017 and a Court of Appeal Judge in February this year. 

Quite fast, if you asked me.

Whatever it is, I think the authorities need to act equally fast on Nazlan's police report as Raja Petra's allegations against him were quite serious and could undermine the credibility of our country's judicial system.

Having said that, it should be noted that Raja Petra has in his latest posting 

Salah laku Nazlan Ghazali sudah selesai disiasat

claimed that the police had actually completed their investigation on Nazlan and urging them to make it public.

Well, if that's the case, I think the police should do just that. If it's not true, do say so too so that the public do not have any doubt over the matter.

Don't wait until the guy publishes another what appeared to be genuine document on the completed investigation.

Make the whole thing public and extinguish any doubt that the public may have on the judiciary because of the allegations made by Raja Petra against Nazlan....whether they are true or not.

Hopefully no one in power will interfere in this matter.

Anyway, back to the rule against bias which I learnt many years ago during my first year in law school, this is its basis as defined by Lord Alfred Thompson Jenning in 

 Metropolitan Properties Co (FGC) Ltd v Lannon 

"Justice must be rooted in confidence and confidence is destroyed when right-minded people go away thinking: 'The judge was biased.'"

Was Nazlan biased when he sentenced Najib to 12 years in jail?

I don't know, but Raja Petra is persuading many right-minded people that he was indeed biased because of his alleged involvement in the 1MDB scandal when he was with Maybank. 

Again, this matter must be addressed by the authorities and they must do so quickly.

As Lord Gordon Hewart famously said in his judgement of

 R v Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy

"It is not merely of some importance, but of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly be seen to be done."

Sorry, I'm not familiar with Malaysian judicial authorities on this matter as I only did English Law back then. Never did my CLP as I ran out of money and had to work right after I graduated.

Whatever it is, the basic principles should be the same, I believe.

(Note: I actually wanted to write more on this but I believe that would put myself at risk of being in contempt of court. So, please excuse me for my rather short take on this issue.)

Between a good lawyer and politically motivated lawyers

 NST today highlighted this statement by lawyer Mohd. Faizal Mokhtar that his client 

Sam Ke Ting calls on public to stop looking at her case from racial angle

excerpts;

Sam had also repeatedly expressed her sadness over what had happened and sympathised with the families of the eight teenagers killed after a car ploughed into them in 2017.

"She has repeatedly said she sympathised with the victims' families. She is saddened with the loss of lives.

"Sam is a law abiding citizen and she has always said she would respect the court's decision. She is prepared to face the consequences if she is found guilty.

"However, we hope people don't view this as a racial issue," he told reporters after the Court of Appeal (COA) freed his client on bail.

Faizal said Sam was thankful her application to appeal against the Johor Baru High Court decision to jail her for six years and RM6,000 fine had been granted.

This Faizal guy is indeed a very good lawyer as he knows all the right things for his client to say in relation to her case.

The message that he conveyed from his client were also all true as those were what I had hoped she would say when I wrote this previous post;

• Sam Ke Ting should not be exploited for racial political propaganda

 Sam was right in choosing to stick with Faizal as her lawyer from the very start of her case.

He seemed focused on defending her interests instead of being distracted by the other issues surrounding the case.

The guy is definitely better than all those DAP lawyers or even Shafee Abdullah, who offered their services to Sam.

It was quite apparent that Faizal was not burdened by any political or popularity agenda in defending Sam.

The only objective of the defence in this case was solely for Sam to get a judgement whereupon she could later move on with her life.

This would not be the case if she had taken the DAP lawyers as her attorneys because they would programme the defence into a political campaign.

Instead of really defending Sam, they would have lashed out at the judiciary, the police, the government, the dead kids and everything else under the sun to promote their political agenda. 

Just look at the recent case of Loh Siew Hong, who initially said all that she ever wanted was just to be with her children again but now got herself entangled in a religious dispute because her DAP BJP/LTTE lawyers have wanted to use her case as a political campaign platform.

Anyway, I also want to express my respect here for Sam for being so cool in facing her predicament.

She was right to make it known that she was sad for the eight kids who lost their lives in the accident and that she sympathise with their families.

She was even willing to accept those punishment meted out by the court, which is something I really admire.

It's not about blaming others as many of her self-appointed defenders have been harping over these past few days.

Sam didn't blame the dead kids or insulted their memory by calling them future mat rempit.

She didn't even try to blame the parents of those kids for not locking them up at home at night.

As I previously wrote, the most important thing with the case now was not to find who's to blame but for us to regain our humanity over the loss of eight young lives and how to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

I really now hope for Sam to win her appeal.

Multi-racial DAP needs Indian (not Malay) votes to win GE15

 These are words of DAP's new secretary-general Anthony Loke;

“Because we see the importance of Indian support in determining whether we can succeed or not,” he said.

“In 2008 and 2013, we won Penang, we won Selangor because there was strong Indian support. So for DAP and PH, we cannot take that for granted. We cannot take Indian support for granted. 

“That’s why we have given this special attention in the Central Executive Committee (CEC). We must regain the support of the Indian community,” he said, adding that PH has to give the ethnic Indian community the confidence that the Opposition pact is the best choice.

Those were from this rather long Malay Mail's DAP promo story today,

DAP sec-gen: No need to wait 10 years to win Putrajaya, Pakatan wont give"blank cheque"or walkover victory to BN in GE15

Even the headline was a bit too long.

Okay, my point is that, here we can see how the supposedly multi-racial DAP has acknowledged that it relies on racial politics to win elections.

In fact, there are many evidence that showed DAP using more extreme racialist tactics compared to the openly race-based parties such as Umno, MCA and MIC.

Some DAP leaders even behaved as if they are leaders of BJP, that Hindu extremist party that currently rules India, while others openly support the LTTE terrorist group in order to win support among Indians in this country.

Their true colours could be seen in cases such as the death of fireman Adib and Muslim children of Loh Siew Hong.

Well, based on what Loke said, DAP relies on the Indian votes to win at least in Penang and Selangor in past elections.

Maybe that's why the party tolerates and in certain cases promotes those BJP/LTTE wannabes in its ranks.

The party definitely doesn't really appreciate its Malay supporters by as much because no DAP leaders have ever came out and said that the party had won so and so state or seats because of Malay support.

How did DAP and its Pakatan allies won GE14?

Because of Indian support? 

Because of Chinese support? 

Or is it because of Malay support tipping over the scale in their favour?

When it comes to the Malays' contributions, they never acknowledge it as being so.

That's why DAP delegates only voted a single Malay into their CEC.

Even the Indians, despite their population in this country being less than seven per cent were better represented in the DAP's CEC than the majority Malays.

I wrote about that in this post;

DAP Malays need to work harder

Let's get real, okay. DAP is a Chinese-based party that panders to Chinese and Indian communities' interests but never really care about the Malays or other Bumiputera people except for propaganda purposes to win votes.

That's a fact.

Some of them even openly said that they don't recognise the Bumiputera status or that Malay is a real race of people.

Well, I actually don't really mind them being like that. This is after all a free country, and they are entitled to that opinion.

It nonetheless, just irritates me when they claimed to be multi-racial while actually they are even more racists than those that they labeled as racists.

The hypocrisy was a little bit too much, okay.

I do have friends in DAP and most of them actually believe in all the bullshit about their party being meant for all. That, even though they mostly don't have any real Malay friends.

I never tried to correct them though, as I knew they would never listen to me.

Whenever I hung out with them, I hardly said anything about how fucked up the party that they were supporting.

The same it was when I went out on dates with my beloved, who is a Chinese DAP supporter.

I don't want to spoil my evening by getting into a political argument. 

Sometimes idiots simply need to learn the hard way.

Anyway, I actually enjoyed watching my beloved acting like an idiot while trying to convince me about the virtues of the DAP's struggles.

It's kinda cute.

Most of the time I just listened, smiled and be cute myself.

Sam Ke Ting should not be exploited for racial political propaganda

 I first wrote about the story of eight kids being killed in a cycling tragedy in JB on Feb 18 2019,

Who were these poor kids?

I put the pictures of all eight dead kids in that post to remind people that they were real kids and not some caricatures of pesky worthless would be mat rempits as painted by some quarters at that time.

I tried to make people understand that they shouldn't so easily judge the dead kids because they died like that...and because of their background.

Whatever it is, I didn't say that the girl who drove the car which hit the kids was guilty for causing their death.

I understand the need to be objective over the whole thing.

As I repeatedly said in that post's comment section, the most important thing was not finding blame but for us to regain our humanity over the loss of eight young lives and how to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

I didn't find anything wrong when the magistrate court acquitted the girl Sam Ke Ting in 2019.

I remember telling myself that it's good for her to be found not guilty of causing the kids' deaths.

After all, I do have faith in our judicial system.

Then yesterday, the High Court decided to overturn Sam's acquittal and sentenced her to six years in jail and RM6,000 fine.

Honestly, I was surprised because it seems quite harsh despite the fact that the whole thing involved the deaths of eight kids.

But then again, if we can respect the decision of the magistrate court, then we have to respect the decision of the High Court too.

We cannot be respecting only the court's decisions that we like and not those that we dislike.

After all, Sam can still appeal to the higher courts.

Unfortunately, I found that Sam's case for clemency has apparently taken a racial and political tone with some quarters surreptitiously painting it as a crusade of defending a Chinese girl from the unfair and evil system set up by the Malay establishment.

The ones who immediately surged forward to defend her were mostly Chinese organisations and leaders, with DAP and MCA racing each other to offer their help.

It's good for Sam that she's getting support and help, but I wish they didn't make it so obvious like that.

If Sam is a Malay girl and the dead kids were Chinese, do you think they would fall over each other in trying to help her?

I also wish that some of Sam's supporters could try not to behave like assholes too much.

You can see that in this report by Malay Mail;

Online petitions seeking justice for Sam Ke Ting in Johor 'basikal lajak' case amass over 250,000 signatures in hours

excerpts;

“We Malaysians are horrified by the new sentence of Sam, where facts supported that she was a responsible driver, the real victim in this accident. It was the failed parenthood of the parents of the future mat rempit that allowed their children to roam in the street with modified bicycles, or ‘basikal lajak’ at 3am.

“We do not accept this judgment, and seek to have her sentence overturned, so not to rob the bright future of a young, innocent Malaysian citizen,” the petition said.

Yes, I do agree that Sam has most likely suffered because of the tragedy. She has to deal with the fact that she was involved in an incident which took the lives of eight kids and faces the law for it.

But she's still alive and as pointed out by that supporter of her, she still has a bright future.

The eight kids were on the other hand dead.

No bright future for them

Are they not victims in the incident too?

The Sam's supporter blamed the incident on "the failed parenthood of the parents of the future mat rempit", as that effectively makes the lives of the kids worthless.

Hey, I'm okay if you want to defend Sam, but do you have to say that about the dead kids and their parents?

I even sense a tinge of racism when the Sam's supporter who used a Malay name to initiated the online petition described the eight dead Malay kids as "future mat rempit".

Honestly, I don't think Sam needs these kind of supporters, whom I believe are actually trying to win some political or racial brownie points from her case instead of really helping her.

Yes, I do hope that she will win her appeal against the conviction, but without having to become a propaganda instrument of those people.

Her case was an unfortunate tragedy, which took the lives of eight kids. 

It's not about race or politics.

The weird RTK-AG mission of Chun Wai and his Star team

 A friend has asked me as to why The Star had been relentless in criticising the handling of international travellers arriving at our airports since the border reopened on April 1.

He noted that there were several reports by the once mighty newspaper on the RTK-AG tests offered for international travellers at the airports.

This is one of the reports on April 7;

Getting testy upon arrival

I noticed that The Star even assembled a team to do the report.

By RAHIMY RAHIM, R. SEKARAN, IMRAN HILMY, MOHD FARHAAN SHAH and IYLIA MARSYA ISKANDAR

Quite impressive. 

Five reporters being assigned to do a single report is such a luxury for any editorial team these days.

The Star's editorial must have placed this issue as its top priority, I believe.

Unfortunately, the report didn't get too far when the rather simple rebuttal came the next day;

MAHB clarifies that international travellers do not have to do RTK-AG tests at airports

excerpts;

In its statement today, MAHB said the latest standard operating procedure (SOP) states that international travellers are only required to do the RTK-AG test within 24 hours upon arrival in Malaysia at any private health facilities including clinics and hospitals of their choice.

It stated that the testing facilities at the airports were actually made available for passengers who wish to have the convenience of doing the tests right away upon their arrival.

MAHB also dismissed claims that there has been a monopoly in conducting such Covid-19 tests at the airports.

The whole thing was quite clear now, right?

But no, The Star editorial was apparently not done yet. 

Its advisor Wong Chun Wai came out with this in his column yesterday,

Ahead of the curve

The guy, who is now something like the Lim Kit Siang of The Star was basically repeating the same arguments before the MAHB's explanation on the matter.

He even further downplayed the importance of the RTK-AG tests.

Chun Wai really shouldn't be like that. 

He is after all still too young to behave like Kit Siang.

Why can't he just admit that the test is a cautionary measure during our transition to endemicity?

What's wrong with going the extra mile in keeping Malaysia safe, eh?

After all I was told that there have been Covid-19 positive cases among the arrivals despite pre-departure PCR.

Remember those umrah positive cases a few months ago? Yup, they are the ones.

On the contention by Chun Wai and his team about the monopoly of those tests, well, that one had been explained already, what?

You want the test done at your convenience there upon arrival, you pay more lah. 

Otherwise just take a Grab to some clinic or hospital from the airport and get it done there, maybe at a cheaper price.

Even KFC is more expensive at the airports, okay.

Life is easier if you have money.

Why? Was it so difficult to understand that concept?

For instance, if you don't have enough money, you fly AirAsia lah. No need to complain about the more expensive Malaysian Airlines tickets.

And then again, also don't complain about AirAsia's services. You were paying them only that much, okay.

Personally, I love Malaysia Airlines' services but when I don't have enough money and forced to fly AirAsia, Malindo or the other budget airlines, I didn't bitch.

As to why Chun Wai and his team were going all out on the issue....seriously, I don't know.

Maybe a client complained to them about the matter because it wanted to set up a booth at KLIA to offer the RTK-AG services too.

Yup, maybe that's the reason.

It has always been about money whenever The Star editorial go all out on an issue like that.

But then again I could be wrong. 

Maybe it's just Chun Wai's girlfriend bitching to him about having to undergo the test when she came back to Malaysia the other day, forcing him to show his love by going after that issue.

You know lah, when a man is in love.

Errr, okay, okay I'm just guessing. 

I don't know whether Chun Wai have a girlfriend, okay.

Relax Datin Seri Wong.

Whatever it is, I don't think he and his team should spend too much time and effort on that issue like that.

It only makes crazy people like me to develop fancy theories about why they are doing that.

Cheers.

Trying not to get too bored and being patient

Didn't find anything that I really feel like writing about this past week.

Everything were just repeats of past foolishness and hypocrisy of the newsmakers.

The noise about the anti-hopping bill was one such examples.

Only now the Pakatan people are bitching about it.

Not when they came to power in 2018 when the rats on their opposing side were jumping across into their boat.

That one was among their hypocrisies which turned me off about them.

As for BN/Umno, I'm still sore about what happened in Johor that day.

They just cowered and did nothing.

Honestly it made them looked like a bunch of losers with no balls.

Just looking at their lame duck MB down there trying desperately to be significant by making some lame statements these past few days made me laughed.

Okay, never mind. What else could the guy do anyway, right.

Oh, and just looking at PM Ismail Sabri's pathetic attempt to be PM-like with his Bahasa Melayu as Nusantara language idea also nauseated me.

That one already been rubbished by the Indonesians.

He really should concentrate on doing what he could with his limited time as PM with fixing our Covid-19 wrecked economy.

Really guys, it's hard to be interested in those sort of things these days.

Political windbags like Rafizi trying to make a come back and Anwar trying to stay relevant going into debate with Najib....does that one really matter?

You all not tired of all such bullshits ka?

Personally, I'm more concerned over why the government hospital that I went to for treatment kept postponing one of my medical tests.

They told me they were short of staff because of Covid-19.

Okay, that stopped me from complaining.

Understandable. Hopefully they will have their full staff back soon....before I die of my ailment, that is.

Whatever it is, I keep telling myself to be patient.

Anyway, beggars can't be choosers.

I can't afford to go to a private hospital anymore, so I have to deal with the discomfort and inconveniences.

Anyway, as they said, ajal maut ditangan Tuhan.

Nothing really to fear, okay....except maybe I'll go to hell for being such a miserable sinner.

By the way, despite the delays, I have to thank the government hospital staff who handled by treatment so far. 

They did their best and were nice to me.

Alhamdulillah, I'm so far still have enough energy to do some of my works and puasa too.

It's nice to afford being able to continue counting my blessings.

Hopefully things will get better despite the currently rather shitty atmosphere.

Cheers.

Better Ramadhan stories

 It's Ramadhan again.

I had steamed fish with rice and fried veggie for sahur early this morning.

Very simple meal.

I hope to keep it that way, including for buka puasa.

Need to be careful about spending money these days as I don't have much of it.

Anyway, my health has also not been good of late, so that the best is for me to eat simple stuff.

Can't even eat spicy food anymore.

No more vaping too, because I think something is wrong with my lungs, causing my breathing a bit of a problem.

I'm also planning to be a better Muslim starting this Ramadhan.

For one thing, I will try to better observe the rituals, which I have been mostly neglected all these while.

Just feel like doing all that better from now on.

Raya is still a month away, but I have made up my mind that I will not celebrate it too much.

No reason for celebrations yet, as far as I'm concerned, as things are still very tough all around due to Covid-19.

Maybe I'll cook some Raya food, eat it and that's about it.

Definitely no crazy shopping. 

Kita shopping raya, orang lain yang kaya. That's stupid, isn't it?

Raya is not Christmas okay.

I'm actually uncomfortable even when people highlighted the stories of bazar ramadhan too much during the fasting month.

Not that I'm against people making some money selling food like that, but it's just that I think the media should make better stories about the holy month of Ramadhan.

For instance, maybe Malay Mail or FMT could do a human interest story on their favourite subject of Loh Siew Hong and her children.

Well, they made several such good stories before, so another piece on how the kids observe Ramadhan with their Hindu/Buddhist mother would be nice.

That would be inspiring, don't you think?

Provided the kids have not yet been turned into non-Muslims lah.

Well, if that's the case, Malay Mail and FMT can still do a story celebrating a victory over the achievement of getting the kids out of Islam.

That should also be a good Ramadhan story for Muslims as it would remind them what these people actually think of them and their religion.

How about Utusan, Berita Harian, Kosmo, Harian Metro and the other Malay publications try to interview the mother and the kids?

Get the real story straight from them instead of getting the shit from the DAP's LTTE/BJP lawyers like what the English portals are doing.

Or how about an interview with the father of the kids? Just go to the prison and get his side of the story. That would not be too hard to do, isn't it?

I'm quite sure the father has a lot to tell.

That would make a better Ramadhan story than writing about Muslims going crazy over food when they were supposed to be fasting.

I think stories about taking care of our akidah are much better during Ramadhan than stories about our stomach, Raya shopping and gedik artistes celebrating Raya ala-Christmas.

How about that, Malay Muslim journalists?

Well, selamat berpuasa to you all.

Take care.