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Part 2 – Gobbledegook and regurgitation in the written judgments of the Court of Appeal in Zambry v Nizar: Postscript – Zainun Ali JCA’s judgment

By NH Chan

Postscript

On Tuesday, July 7 2009 I posted an article under the above title on the web with various news portals. At that time I only have the written judgments of two of the judges Raus Sharif and Ahmad Maarop JJCA. I have just received the third judgment that of Zainun Ali JCA from Mr. Edmund Bon of loyarburok.com through Mr. Ngan Siong Hing of Ipoh for which I am most grateful. Below is my critique of the written judgment of Zainun Ali JCA.

The points that really matter

As I have said it before in the first part of this article, there are only two points that really matter in the appeal of the case in question. They involve the reading of two clauses in Article 16 of the Perak Constitution and an understanding of what the clauses mean. A very experienced judge, the late Lord Justice Salmon in a talk which he gave to young members of the English Bar (Some Thoughts on the Traditions of the English Bar) said:

…..remember this, in few cases, however complex, is there usually more than one point that matters. Very seldom are there more than two and never, well hardly ever, more than three. Discover the points that really matter. Stick to them and discard the rest.

Actually, Salmon U was revealing to budding advocates the mind of a judge. The young advocates are informed, before they embark on their career, that a judge makes his decision by discovering the point that really matters or, exceptionally, the points that really matter. This revelation should place aspiring advocates on the right direction to becoming good advocates.

Continue reading “Part 2 – Gobbledegook and regurgitation in the written judgments of the Court of Appeal in Zambry v Nizar: Postscript – Zainun Ali JCA’s judgment”

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Can Najib’s upsurge in popularity on his 100th Day be sustained with a BN victory in Manek Urai by-election and is he confident enough to seek a motion of confidence when Parliament reconvenes on Oct 19?

Tomorrow is Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 100th Day as Malaysia’s sixth Prime Minister.

Najib’s baggage as Prime Minister is vividly illustrated by the pathetic episode where Najib’s spinmeister could work up a “song and a dance” over the fact that Najib’s popularity rating in a recent poll had spiralled to 65% as compared to 45% a month after he became Prime Minister and 42 per cent just before taking over the premiership from Tun Abdullah on April 3, 2009.

Yes, it was quite a remarkable 44% recovery from 45% popularity rating in six weeks for Najib to claw back 20 percentage points in the latest Merdeka Centre opinion poll, but his spinmeisters feigned ignorance that it was really a very dismal rating when compared to the five previous Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah who would have no difficulty in securing popularity rating of 95% and over for any opinion poll in their “First 100 Days”.

Can Najib’s upsurge in popularity on his 100th day be sustained with a Barisan Nasional victory in Manek Urai by-election in Kelantan next Tuesday and is he confident enough of his national popularity to seek a motion of confidence when Parliament reconvenes on Oct 19, something he had not dared to do in the recent three-week meeting of Parliament?
Continue reading “Can Najib’s upsurge in popularity on his 100th Day be sustained with a BN victory in Manek Urai by-election and is he confident enough to seek a motion of confidence when Parliament reconvenes on Oct 19?”

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Cabinet next week should undo its unprofessional, political and disastrous PPSMI decision with four-point remedy in line with national aspirations to be internationally competitive to become high-income nation

Six years ago, the Cabinet under Tun Mahathir took a hasty and ill-considered decision to rush headlong to implement the PPSMI (Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik – teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics in English) from Std One for all primary schools, totally without proper or adequate preparation making five million Malaysian school children in the primary schools guinea pigs of BN politicians in the past six years.

Today, the Cabinet under Datuk Seri Najib Razak in trying to undo the failures and disasters of the ill-considered Cabinet decision six years ago after wasting RM4 billion of public funds, is again committing the folly of another ill-considered decision that will victimize millions of Malaysian students by making them “guinea pigs” of BN politicians for a second time in their 11-year primary and secondary education.

It is shocking beyond belief that Cabinet Ministers and Education Ministry officials could be so irresponsible and unprofessional as to turn million of students into “guinea pigs” for their half-baked educational experiments twice in a decade.

Students in Form 1 this year will continue to be taught maths and science in English until Form 3 in 2011, having spent the past six years in primary school with English as the medium of instruction for these two subjects under PPSMI.
Continue reading “Cabinet next week should undo its unprofessional, political and disastrous PPSMI decision with four-point remedy in line with national aspirations to be internationally competitive to become high-income nation”