My last column asked the rhetorical question as to what is ‘noise’ as defined within communication theory. Noise is any interruption or interference that distorts the message intended from the message owner to the intended message recipient. I then went on to reflect on various noises in our lived environment; including some related to governance within the Islamic and Christian faiths in Malaysia.
This column now asks an even more pointed and rhetorical question: Is there too much noise in the Malaysian judiciary; our so-called third arm for good governance? Why do I ask this question? I have three simple but good reasons:
1. I have been to court three times; and I will admit that all three times, I did not quite get justice, because of process failures in our judicial system but I am supposed to be happy and keep silent now. Yes, I did win my case but justice is not about winning or losing; it is about truth and truth matters, and whether all involved have received their just rewards.
2. Last week, there were three ‘Allah’ cases in the courts of Malaysia; on March 4, 5 and 6. My question is, “Was this God-incident or was it merely co-incidental?” I am not blaming God or Man for the incidence, but really asking some searching questions for all of us to ponder.
3. There was also another “rushed case in court” in the same week which was an appeal and it involved a very important and famous Malaysian personality, and he was being defended by another equally famous personality, but who was recently found guilty of wrong-doing by the same courts also.
My question is why all this rush with overlapping schedules? For that matter, who decided this case too must be heard on March 6 and 7 and that the judgement must be delivered by 5.30pm?
A coincidence of humanly divined fate?
MAD magazine’s morality caricature
To be fair to the white sheep of the judiciary, while I will hint about some black sheep, or many black sheep for that matter, I am reminded of a MAD magazine back page art work in the early 1970s.
It had two pictures of sheep with the titles: Morality then and Morality now. The ‘then version’ had many white sheep having surrounding the one black sheep and looking very angrily at the black sheep. That message was clear.
The ‘now’ artwork had all the black sheep surrounding one lonely white sheep in the centre and it was obvious that they were exactly the same white sheep who were all now painted black but were equally angry with the original white sheep; now painted black. The thesis was about morality then and now. How true! The new morality included the artwork, too.
Morality and behavioural ethics
On a similar line of thinking about this issue of morality and rational behaviour; Professor Amitai Etzioni of the George Washington University published a whole book as his magnum opus: ‘The Moral Dimension: Towards a New Economics’.
In it, Etzioni, a university professor pf sociology and economics at George Washington University, argued that arrogant ugly utilitarian individual capitalists can only be moderated by society so that some form of common civic morality is maintained for sanity of our community of humans.
Allow me to “borrow Etzioni’s theory about moderating the ‘ugly utilitarian individual’ using society as community standard for our common morality”. Therefore, my question about morality within the judiciary of Malaysia asks the rhetorical question who is really responsible for all the noise in our Judiciary? Are we all not actors on the same stage of Shakespeare; Bar Council included.
Let me publicly reflect on the three cases, and express my issues and concerns. There is really no rule related to sub judice in this matter, as these are now contents and evidence already a specified in actual cases which has been heard.
My issues relate to failure of due process; which was the same issue of which Karpal Singh ( right ) is now supposed guilty. He simply questioned the truth and righteousness of the behavioural conduct of the monarchy in Perak; but, our wise judges ruled on this matter but forgot they, too, are defined by the same constitution of Malaysia. If Karpal is guilty; Dr Mahathir Mohamad is even more guilty of worse things because he did what Karpal only asserted could be done.
Due process in our judiciary
My three cases were originally filed in 2005, and the main case was finally heard in 2012. After two days of hearing with four witnesses; two from each side, the judgment was delivered in my favour.
The single problem I have with the process of the judiciary, which is sworn to uphold justice under our constitution, is my question: Why was I only awarded a legal costs of RM30,000 when I did actually spend more than RM100,000 and 10 years for this relative justice?
Through the judgment it is now obvious that I was simply the innocent victim of a bad governance process with had zero fault on my part? Why am I therefore being short-changed? What is now my alternative recourse?
In the next case, how can the three ‘Allah’ cases, filed in three different jurisdictions, by three different people, in three different stages of hearing, be scheduled to be heard on the three different days in the same week in 2014; i.e. in the same month of the Kajang by-election? Frankly, is it Man’s plans or God’s plans which truly matter? Or, is this another version of a buy-election?
Thirdly, I was moved by the Aliran Newsletter emailed to me but which pictured Wan Azizah Wan Ismail in tears over the her husband’s case decision in the Court of Appeal. I am not sure of the authenticity of the actual photo and when it was taken.
But the case took place a day before the International Women’s Day, and therefore the rest of my column is my reflections about her possible feelings, as wife and mother. She is also head of their political party; which historically started as the Reformasi movement in the year of that infamous year of the Commonwealth Games in Malaysia. This column is dedicated to all women who have to endure all the challenges of being an exemplary Asian wife and mother.
How does Wan Azizah really feel at all this public abuse of her husband? She knows her husband and yet she is now told again that her husband is guilty of something she does not believe he is guilty of. Should I judge her husband instead? For me, the Bible is very clear on this subject: Do not judge others lest you be judged.
How does Wan Azizah feel about how her children feel? Two of them were in court, and how do they really feel about this whole affair; can or should they have any doubt about their dad’s guilty or otherwise? How does that affect their respect for their father? How should their family deal with this?
Also, how then does Wan Azizah, the president of the People’s Justice Party feel now that her candidate for the Kajang by-election has been derailed by the court system? Was that why everything was so hurried? Why so many question about this Kajang vacancy but not about the other one in Sarawak? Is it not all about Melayusia brand of politics of filth, mud and dirt?
I can only say one thing to the government of Malaysia and especially our judiciary: God cannot be mocked; so, please do not play God in anyone’s life.
Let me conclude with what I saw on CNN today. Their business journalist reported about a strange “coincidence of fate” especially about the lost MAS Flight only because he had previously interviewed the same co-pilot who is now also co-pilot of the fatal flight. Was that a coincidence or a God-incidence? May God Bless Malaysia.
