It’s Dangerous to Be Right, When the Government is Wrong!
Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, MP Kuala Selangor.
As if the rots that have plagued the judiciary weren’t enough to erode the confidence of the people towards this critical institution, the de facto Law Minister, DS Nazri Aziz, on Monday, stunned the House when he said that there’s no law to criminalize brokering for judicial appointment.
Despite all the hue and cry, VK Lingam is after all going to be scot-free as no crimes were established.
This has surely brought utter disrepute to the already tainted judiciary, now badly in need of a ‘total overhaul’ of its image and integrity. While the claim of an absence of a legislation or an act to ‘illegalise’ and ‘criminalise’ may be unfortunately true, his suggestion that ‘Lingham might have just acted to fix the appointment of judges to impress’ was really a very bad joke. I almost wanted to say that he has turned himself into a clown. But I would reserve it for another day.
But this decision has made a huge mockery of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on VK Lingam’s fiasco. I stood in that august house on that day, to make the minister to commit saying that ‘what may be morally wrong could be legally or politically right’ in this country of ours.
He answered in the affirmative without hesitation. He wanted to lecture us on that. He chose to be oblivious of the saying of Abraham Lincoln and many a great mind on the subject of “Philosophy of Law”, “Moral Foundation of Law” and “Theory of Law” 101.
Admittedly also, the acrimonious debate is a long standing one, from time immemorial. Notwithstanding, the case of Lingam is surely so obviously ‘wrong’ as much as it is ‘immoral’. When an action could not, but be interpreted, as brokering or lobbying for an appointment of the highest position of the office of the judiciary, it indeed is an open assault on the integrity of the judiciary.
