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Teoh Beng Hock would not have died if MACC had followed the law (update)

DAP political aide Teoh Beng Hock would not have died if the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had followed the law.

This is the immediate reaction not only of family members of Beng Hock, DAP and Pakatan Rakyat, but all Malaysians following the landmark decision by the Kuala Lumpur High Court today which ruled that the MACC is not entitled to interrogate witnesses late at night beyond normal office hours, from 8.30am to 5.30pm.

Justice Mohd Ariff Md Yusof ruled that it was illegal for the MACC to question its witnesses at night as such questioning must be done during the daytime.

“The term day to day as stipulated in the MACC Act cannot mean round the clock.”

This landmark decision is the result of the suit filed by Kajang Councillor Tan Boon Hwa who was falsely imprisoned together with Teoh Beng Hock on July 15 and 16 at the MACC headquarters in Shah Alam, with the case argued by DAP National Chairman and MP for Bukit Glugor Karpal Singh.
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Another black day for Parliament and anti-corruption

Another black day for Parliament and for Malaysia’s anti-corruption campaign – when my motion for an emergency debate on Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2009 which saw Malaysia suffering the worst CPI rank of 56 and score of 4.5, as well as the worst single-year drop in CPI rank by nine placings from last year’s 47th position and fall of CPI score of 0.6 from last year’s 5.1, was rejected in chambers by the Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin as “not urgent”.

It is meaningless to talk about the TI CPI 2009 as a “wake-up” call, as it would appear that nothing is capable of waking up the Barisan Nasional government to clean up corruption in Malaysia except for a change of federal government in the next general elections.

A survey of the 15 annual reports of the TI CPI from 1995 to 2009 shows that Malaysia occupies dubious company, sharing with Philippines the dishonour of being two of the 12 Asian countries first surveyed in 1995 which had ended with both lower CPI ranking and score in CPI 2009 as compared to CPI 1995 – with Malaysia suffering a bigger drop in CPI score of .78 (5.28 in 1995; 4.5 in 2009) as compared to Philippines, which suffered a drop of .37 in the past 15 years (2.77 in 1995; 2.4 in 2009).
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