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Najib improperly intefering with Court of Appeal hearing on Nizar vs Zambry case

It is most improper and irresponsible for the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to try to influence the Court of Appeal hearing on Thursday on the Nizar-Zambry case, undermining judicial independence and integrity.

This is the first time in my memory in the past 43 years that a Prime Minister had made a public pronouncement on a matter which is the very subject of litigation before an appellate court, as if the Executive is sending out a clear, unmistakable and even threatening message to the Judiciary of the executive interests in a case pending before the Appellate court.

And if such impropriety had not happened in the past 43 years, it would not have happened in the first nine years of the nation’s independence, as Bapa Malaysia and the first Prime Minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman would have been very careful and meticulous in ensuring that there could not be any speck of suspicion that the Executive was interfering with the judiciary.

Hasn’t Najib heard the doctrine of the separation of powers among the executive, legislature and judiciary and the principle of the independence of the judiciary and the need for the Executive not only to respect, but also to be seen to respect, the integrity of the judiciary?

None of the previous five Prime Ministers had gone so far as to openly dictate to the judiciary how to it should adjudicate cases involving the Executive – despite the judicial darkness of the past two decades.

Why is Najib prepared to commit such a flagrant and blatant act of Executive disrespect and contempt for the Judiciary in such public and international manner?
Continue reading “Najib improperly intefering with Court of Appeal hearing on Nizar vs Zambry case”

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The unfair PSD scholarship awards

Letters
by Lye Hoke Tan

The unfair PSD scholarship awards issue, it happens all the times. I graduated from Chung Ling High School in Penang at 2004. Before 2004, I didn’t notice much about this problem, I just heard it from my high school teachers complaint it to us, I didn’t know it was so serious until it happened to my friends around.

Well, I can see this happens every year. Every year, to the same victims (Chinese Top Students), at the same time(after SPM results released), the same thing happen continuously in our country. Every year, I see the problems occur non-stop, it seems like unsolved cases even though those ministers, parties promised it could be solved. I have lost my confidence over their creditability, how can you give scholarship to someone, who his/her result is poorer than the others, just because of the skin colour.

Is PSD blind? They failed to see As every where every year, PSD prefer B and C? Maybe, as our government always has funny and “incredible” systems to rule this country. The funniest thing is, they DARE to repeat this “carelessness” every year, non stop. The media reported the same issue every year, what a shame!

The same thing happened during 2004, I have a friend, she got 13A1, she was also one of the top student had lunch with our ex-PM, Pak Lah, but the point is she failed to get JPA. When she told us she failed to get it, we got shocked. If top student like her by having 13A1 failed to get JPA, then we wonder how are we going to get it? Maybe we have to blame for our parents aren’t Datuk & Datin.

The next day, she went to the press, same stories like what it happens today. So, the next few days, she got the JPA. This is how our PSD works, OMG! Continue reading “The unfair PSD scholarship awards”

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English can be fun

Spotted in a toilet of a London office:
TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW.

In a London Laundromat:
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES:
PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT

Outside a London second-hand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING – BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC.
WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Seen during a London conference:
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN’T KNOW IT,
THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR

Notice in a field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE,
BUT THE BULL CHARGES Continue reading “English can be fun”

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In God’s name, do the honourable thing, Najib

by Tunku Abdul Aziz
Malaysian Insider
14.5.09

The last three months have seen a flurry of activity on the Perak political front. All of this was without any doubt occasioned by Najib’s blatantly cynical, barefaced manipulation of human greed. Najib is no novice when it comes to money matters. He succeeded spectacularly in seducing the three most unremarkable and positively unpleasant Pakatan Rakyat characters to declare themselves independent supporters of the Barisan Nasional.

They have, as to be expected, denied most vehemently that they had succumbed to any such unworthy and degrading temptation as money. Conventional wisdom, on the other hand, says that Malaysian politicians will only transfer their party allegiance for cash, and not principle. I leave you to draw your own conclusion in this particular case.

Najib’s single act of subterfuge has been remarkable for the damage, and repercussions, to the Malaysian body politic, quite apart from damaging further his own already seriously bruised reputation. If he thought what he had done was an example of cutting edge political sophistication, I suggest he should think again. He has by his reckless adventure only succeeded in portraying himself as nothing more than a common garden variety, and not the statesman that we thought he would become given his father’s honoured place in our history and his family credentials. Continue reading “In God’s name, do the honourable thing, Najib”

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Unfair award of PSD scholarships – suspend PSD DG for insurbordination or Ong Tee Keat should resign as Minister for failure to implement Cabinet policy decided in March

Yesterday, MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat announced that the Government will review the selection criteria for Public Services Department scholarships and that a meeting the same day would be held among Barisan Nasional component party leaders, the PSD director-general and the Chief Secretary to the Government to discuss the matter and reconsider rejected cases.

However, the most senior MCA Minister was contradicted yesterday itself by the Public Service Department director-general, Tan Sri Ismail Adam, as reported in today’s New Straits Times, which carried the headline “’No review of PSD scholarship selection criteria’”, viz:

PUTRAJAYA: There will be no review of the selection criteria for Public Service Department scholarships, PSD director-general Tan Sri Ismail Adam said yesterday.

He said he had not received any directive to reconsider the criteria.

Unsuccessful applicants for scholarships had until Monday to appeal, he added.

MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat said on Wednesday there would be a review of the PSD criteria for giving out scholarships.

Ismail denied there was a meeting among Barisan Nasional component party leaders, the chief secretary to the government and himself, as claimed by Ong.

Ismail also denied Ong’s claims on the current selection criteria.

Who is lying? The MCA President or the PSD DG?
Continue reading “Unfair award of PSD scholarships – suspend PSD DG for insurbordination or Ong Tee Keat should resign as Minister for failure to implement Cabinet policy decided in March”

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ASSK’s Monday trial – Malaysia/ASEAN should pressure Myanmar junta as ASEAN Charter should not be human rights “whitewash”

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should lead Malaysia and ASEAN to pressure the Myanmar military junta to release Burmese democracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to prove to the world that the ASEAN Charter is no “whitewash” for the most egregious human rights violations in Myanmar.

Malaysia and ASEAN’s credibility in international society are also dragged through the mud when Suu Kyi was indicted with the ridiculous charge of breaching the terms of her house arrest over a bizarre incident in which a US Vietnam veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder swam to her lakeside house.

Charged under the country’s Law Safeguarding the State from the Dangers of Subversive Elements, which carries jail sentence up to five years, Suu Kyi faces lengthy and harsh incarceration in Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison.

The purpose clearly is to stretch her detention past its supposed expiry date this month and through controversial elections due in 2010, an important plank of the Myanmese military junta’s sham “12-step road to democracy”.
Continue reading “ASSK’s Monday trial – Malaysia/ASEAN should pressure Myanmar junta as ASEAN Charter should not be human rights “whitewash””

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May 13 tragedy, we should move on

By Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad

1.While we remember the 40th anniversary of the May 13 tragedy, we should move on. It’s time for closure of the sad, very sad incident.

2.The tragic and vicious incident need not have happened had Tun Razak’s message to Dato’ Harun Idris, the menteri besar of Selangor, reached him 30-minutes earlier or had Tan Sri David Tan Chee Khoon and Tun Lim Chong Eu spoken to Tun Razak 30 minutes earlier relaying their decision not to cooperate with DAP to form the state government of Selangor nor worked together in Perak and elsewhere. I was beside Tun Razak when he took the calls from them late past tea time on the fateful evening of 13 May. I recall clearly what Tun Razak told Harun “…the good news is you will continue to run Selangor. Chee Khoon and Chong Eu had just spoken to me that they want status quo preserved. So tell the people gathering at your house to disperse.” Harun thanked Tun and asked him to convey his gratitude to the two statesmen. Between five-to-ten minutes after that Harun rang Tun Razak to say that it was too late. As he was persuading them to disperse news reached the crowd that clashes had begun in Chow Kit Road and surroundings and beyond.

3.Tun Razak asked Harun to calm the gathering and urged him, in strong terms, to attempt his best to stop the clashes from escalating. The rest, as they say, is history. Though Harun and I were not on good political terms I must be fair. I think he did try, but by then, to no avail.
Continue reading “May 13 tragedy, we should move on”

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No more “May 13” spectre – now its “May 7” spectre!

Thousands of Malaysians from all races and religions are gathered here tonight on the 40th anniversary of the traumatic May 13 riots in 1969 to send out a clear and unmistakable message – that after the March 8 “political tsunami” last year, Malaysians have put the 40-year spectre of “May 13” behind them as the new haunting image is the “May 7” Day of Infamy of the Perak Speaker V. Sivakumar physically dragged out of the Assembly.

This is an image which has instilled such fear in the Barisan Nasional that it has banned television stations from playing video footages of the “May 7” Day of Infamy in the Perak State Assembly – which will be as effective as the book-burning orgies of tyrants of olden ages.

Barisan Nasional leaders do not seem to realize that while they can ban television stations and mainstream media from reproducing the horrifying images of the Perak Speaker being physically dragged out of the Assembly, in Speaker robes and Speaker chair, there is no way to wipe out the pictures from the minds of Malaysians, for the pictures and video footages can be played in every home and in fact are already viewed and disseminated worldwide through the Internet.
Continue reading “No more “May 13” spectre – now its “May 7” spectre!”

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Perak crisis has become national crisis – PR leaders meeting today

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has said that Pakatan Rakyat must not set terms or conditions if it wants to talk about the co-operation to resolve the Perak political crisis.

As I said in my speech at the public forum “From May 13 to 1Malaysia – The Future of Malaysian Nation Building” at the Petaling Jaya Civic Centre last night, Pakatan Rakyat leaders will meet today and this subject will be top on the agenda.

On Saturday, while travelling between Kangar and Alor Star, I received news that the remaining three Hindraf leaders, DAP Selangor State Assemblyman Kota Alam Shah, P. Uthayakumar and K. Vasanthakumar, had been sent off from Kamunting Detention Centre for release under the Internal Security Act.

In a media conference in Alor Setar at about 4.30 pm, I said that the time had come for Najib to have a summit meeting with Pakatan Rakyat leaders to resolve the protracted Perak constitutional crisis and political stalemate.

I said that the release of the Hindraf leaders by themselves were not adequate measures to restore public confidence in key national institutions in the country, especially when the Perak constitutional crisis had become a Malaysian political crisis undermining national confidence in the key national institutions and impairing Malaysia’s international image and competitiveness.
Continue reading “Perak crisis has become national crisis – PR leaders meeting today”

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Even when you do the right thing, it is still wrong

By NHChan

The other day a friend asked me this question: How is it that some of our judges do not seem to know what is the right thing to do, when all of us know what is right or wrong? I was flabbergasted by the question. It was such a simple question, yet I couldn’t give her a direct answer immediately. I just looked at her and shrugged. It was only much later when I got home that I remember what I have read (you joined the Inns of Court to read law, not study law) as a law student some half a century ago – the case of Dudley and Stephens.

We know it is wrong to kill a human being for food in order to survive although necessity is a defence to the charge of murder.

I shall recount the saga of Dudley and Stephens from Lord Denning’s at Next in the Law, Butterworths, London, 1982, pp 48, 49:
Continue reading “Even when you do the right thing, it is still wrong”