Royal Commission of Inquiry on the Lingam video clip has expanded its scope of enquiry beyond VK Lingam and made damning conclusions against several people including Eusoff Chin. In that sense RCI on Lingam video clip has vindicated your earlier call on 12th June 2001 calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Judicial Independence and Justice Muhammad’s shocking expose of telephone directive from a judicial superior. The conclusions of RCI on Lingam video clip, the government’s ex-gratia payments to the judges removed in 1988 – and judge Ian HN Chin’s latest disclosures make it clear that the state of judiciary is in dire straits for revamp and re-constitution. There is arguably no need for further RCI to establish that which is already obvious – and established. The only question is what needs to be done next by the present administration. The onus is on it to show what it needs to do against the backdrop of the necessary and inevitable results emanating from the damning conclusions of the last RCI on the Lingam video clip……So far the cabinet has shifted the buck to the chief government lawyer – the AG – to follow up on investigations of what last RCI on the Lingam video concluded. Nothing has been heard from that side yet on specific issue of whether any offences – whether abuse of power or obstruction of justice – have been committed by any party. Maybe the issue of what has been done in this respect may be raised in Parliament : ask our present Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of law, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim on the latest developments.

I laughed when I looked at front page of The Star, 11th June. We have the stern looking judge Ian HN Chin, with full regalia of judge’s black robe and frilled pips with the caption in bold – Judge’s Boot Camp and byline “Justice Ian Chin tells of threats and indoctrination attempt….”

When mainstream paper The Star with its national reach puts it on front page this way, finish lah this pretence of Judiciary’s independence from Executive Interference!

Now what is a boot camp? It normally refers to a camp for military recruit training, the initial indoctrination and instruction given to new military personnel – except this one, in context, is Bolehland’s Judge Recruit Training and correctional Facility for recalcitrant Judges unwilling to toe the Executive Line! (In eras past totalitarian communist cells also had boot camps for indoctrination!)
What a joke, a perversion of Coinstitutional Process, a scandal!
Those implicated woulds say the Judge has an axe to grind because his father and brother were detained but the problem is that they were detained during the time of the Mustapha regime in Sabah in late 1969 and the early 1970 before the administration of The One implicated!
Besides it is difficult to impugn the credibility and truthfulness of claims and revelations by a sitting judge – which appear as solid as oath itself when expressed in full regalia of robes and pips in court!

Bar Council President Ambiga Sreenevasan has, notwithstanding datukship, has made the point that what judge Ian HN Chin revealed corroborated disclosure in similar vein by Judge Muhammad Kamil Awang earlier, and called for the setting up of a Royal Commision of Inquiry to investigate the allegations. She called for more judges to speak up. It takes the example of one or two judges to speak up for the rest to folliow.

With the image of this once reputed institution of Judiciary so besmirched by the spate of recent revelations following the wake of the damning conclusions of the last RCI on Lingam Video clip, I really don’t know how the government can defer further taking action including responding to the call for another RCI.

One has to realise that if RCI is called for and formed to probe what Justice Ian HN Chin said, the defacto head of Pakatan Rakyat will be called as a witness and be cross examined as well along with others and if what he says implicates himself with his then boss’s agenda of emasculating the judiciary – now I am not saying that this is probable but it is possible – then this will have profound negative implications on the moral standing of Pakatan Rakyat to spearhead reform of the country in displacement of the Barisan Nasional. The question that begs answer is if he did not condone what the then premier did in the boot camp, what would be his excuse (that could stand the objective light of impartial and objective enquiry) to stand in on behalf of the then premier in that boot camp, the purpose of which (which ought to be known to DSAI) was to indoctrinate judges to be pro-government???

DSAI also has to explain why he kept silent and did not disclose in the interest of transparency (at a time before Justice Ian HN Chin) to the public the existence of such a boot camp if it were his intention to expose to the public the rot in the judiciary institution (starting with his exposing the existence of the Lingam video clip). He cannot say he does not know its existence as he attended it on behalf of the former premier. Could he deny what Justice Ian HN Chin said about the objective of the boot camp without taking a position of defence for the former premier that boot camp was not intended for indoctrination purpose as said by Justice Ian HN Chin? So far only one question of why VIPs hanging around posh hotels was disclosed without fruther mention of other questions asked and what more importantly DSAI commented or said in the boot camp! Bearing in mind that those in live in glass houses should not cast stone and those who seek to bring the BN down based on moral corruption cannot do so with tainted record, my sense is that what Justice Ian HN Chin has begun by his revelations, if pursued, would open another ‘pandora box’ that will have profound implications and shock not only on the ruling coalition but the Opposition’s supporters as well, and possibly the momentum of 8th March tsunami. So how many Opposition supporters here would still want to lobby for the RCI on Justice Ian HN Chin’s revelations without knowing beforehand what such an enquiry wwould reveal???

Yes nothing directly yet.

However why did he attend the Boot camp on behalf of TDM knowing its objective or are we to assume he attended functions like this like another sleepy head functionary not knowing its purpose? And if he knew the purpose, then why didn’t he disclose this startling method of indoctrinating judges earlier in view of the campaign initated by him to expose corruption within the Judiciary starting with the existence of the Lingam Clip? Can we have a reasonable explanation to these preliminary questions first. Surely more questions will be asked in th RCI on Justice Ian HN Chin’s revelations.

I wonder on what basis one infers this idea – that “it was a standard BN “rah rah” camp, organised to celebrate the successful methods of the den of thieves. DSAI must have thought that this was a typical opening or closing ceremony type of function where an UMNO leader typically reads off a prepared speech prepared by people close to the event” (Godfather).
Justice Ian HN Chin specifically described a “boot camp” held on May 26-30, one month after the Judges Conference held from April 24 1997.

And according to Justice Chin (a trained lawyer & sitting judge of which precision of words by the way ought to be an asset), it was specifically a ‘booth camp’ – we know what that expression implies – “without any doubt an attempt to indoctrinate those attending the boot camp to hold the view that the government interest as being more important than all else when we are considering our judgement”.

Malaysiakini reported (Jun 11, 08 4:21pm) (I quote) “De facto law minister Zaid Ibrahim today ruled out a probe into claims made by Sarawak High Court judge Ian Chin on the executive intervention into the judiciary some 10 years ago. Zaid said that such a probe would tantamount to a waste of public funds. The minister instead suggested all the alleged judicial interventions could be avoided with the formation of the judiciary commission as proposed by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. “An investigation would not reveal anything more than what we already know,” he told reporters at his office in Putrajaya. In my view, we need to look at restoring the integrity of the judiciary,” he added”.

Now the key words I repeat – “An investigation would not reveal anything more than what we already know”.

This statement by Zaid irreputably establishes to my mind that the government acknowledges and admits that what judge Ian HN Chin said was likely true; that the Judiciary institution has been compromised and is in dire straits of reforms.