Judicial tribunal for AG and Ct of Appeal judge

b) Judicial tribunal into serious allegations of graft and abuse of power against Attorney-General Abdul Ghani Patail

In the past few months, many serious allegations of graft and abuse of power had been made against the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail notably by the former Kuala Lumpur CID Chief Mat Zain Ibrahim in a series of open letters, former MACC panel member Tan Sri Robert Phang and blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin.

These allegations included falsifying facts and evidence in Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s infamous “black eye” incident in 1998, the graft case against Shahidan Shafie and the judicial abuses in the Altantunya Shaaribuu murder trial.

Unless Gani Patail take legal action against these allegations, the Prime Minister should set up a tribunal to clear the name of the Attorney-General as these are very serious allegations which if unrebutted can only undermine public confidence in the professionalism, independence and integrity of the Attorney-General but also key national institutions, including the judiciary, the police and the MACC.

© Substantive motion to set up tribunal to investigate judicial misconduct of Court of Appeal judge Datuk Abdul Malik bin Ishak on plagiarism should be given priority for debate and decision

For the first time, there is a substantive motion in Parliament as required under Article 127 of the Federal Constitution stipulating support by not less than the total number of MPs in Parliament as a precondition for parliamentary discussion of conduct of judge.

In this case, the motion by the DAP MP for Bukit Glugor Karpal Singh to refer Court of Appeal Judge Datuk Abdul Malik bin Ishak to a tribunal to investigate serious charges of plagiarism against Abdul Malik and to suspend him for three months while awaiting the outcome of the tribunal has met the requisite notice of having the support of 59 MPs.

I call on the Prime Minister to give top priority for this substantive motion on a Court of Apeal Judge to be debated and decided and not left to “die” on the House Order Paper which will lapse and be ignored if the government does not agree to allocate parliamentary time for debate.

Najib talks about wanting to make Malaysia “the best democracy in the world”. He should start by respecting the most elementary practices in established Parliaments in developed democracies – in this case, accept that there are parliamentary business like the motion for a tribunal to investigate into the Court of Appeal judge -which are given parliamentary priority regardless of who is the government of the day as they impinge directly on doctrine of separation of powers among the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary.

Can the Prime Minister state when he would agree to allow MPs to debate and decide on the judicial substantive motion for a tribunal on the serious charge of plagiarism against Justice Abdul Malik – or whether he would be using the subterfuge of the government deciding on allocation and use of parliamentary time by killing the motion by denying time to debate the substantive motion?

d.Government withholding of Auditor-General’s Reports in time for budget debate latest proof that Najib’s government is not walking the talk of government and economic transformations.

The Government withholding of the Auditor-General’s Reports in time for budget debate is the latest proof that the Najib government is not walking the talk of government and economic transformations.

The promise in the various transformation programmes that “well-governed and leaner government institutions will be held accountable to performance-based outcomes in line with the GTP.” were all broken in one blow when the Auditor-General’s Reports were not made available to MPs for the budget debate.

The only reason why the Auditor-General’s Reports are not ready to be tabled in time for the budget debate, although the Auditor-General’s Reports for this year had been completed earlier than last year’s reports, is clearly to deny MPs the opportunity to highlight government and budgetary weaknesses, failings, abuses of power and misappropriations.

It is proof that the government is regressing instead of progressing despite all the talk of GTP, ETP and now PTP!

Speech (5) in Parliament on the 2012 Budget on Monday 17th October 2011