(The Star) BIDOR: Cabinet members or Barisan Nasional component party leaders should be consulted before the Government issues any detention order, said MCA secretary-general Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan.

Ong, who is also Housing and Local Government Minister, said the detention of Sin Chew Daily reporter Tan Hoon Cheng under the Internal Security Act was not raised.

“We hope in future there will be more consultation among Cabinet members or component party leaders because we were not informed about this,” he told reporters after opening the joint sports day of the Choong Hua and Taman Ria kindergartens here yesterday.
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Two major observations from the above report -

1. The complete irrelevance of the MCA

I don’t know how you MCA goons can admit to us how irrelevant you are or have become in the BN and yet not feeling ashamed. You are obviously and completely irrelevant in the BN and you are tolerated in the BN merely because UMNO needs you as their agents to bluff the Chinese and for being the dogs, you are awarded the privilege to lick up the bread crumbs swept to the ground from the feasting tables of UMNO. Unfortunately for you, the majority of the Chinese are not easily bluffed by you and therefore you have also become irrelevant to the Chinese community and because you have become irrelevant to the Chinese community, you are becoming more and more a pariah in the BN. Adding to your woes, it has now reached a time when the consciousness of Malaysian is fast ejecting all race-based parties and politics. You will become even more irrelevant. ?ore of a big pain in the a-se. I think the best thing you can do is to disband, get all your MPs to resign as MPs. Do us a favour – for once please think of the future of Malaysia and Malaysians. Gives me the s-it everytime I think how you are willing to be the dogs to screw up the country and all Malaysians’ future.

2. No exercise of ISA powers by the Executive collectively as a whole

It is obvious that although the ISA empowers the Executive to arrest and detain without trial for national security reasons, the recent exercise of that power was arbitrarily done by only one or two Ministers. This is evident from the “shock” expressed by so many Ministers and the resignation of Zaid Ibrahim who were and still are part of the Executive. In the habeas corpus application which has been filed, this fact should be highlighted – the fact that such a drastic Executive power had been exercised so arbitrarily and so lackadaisically and illegally by only a few. The Executive power to invoke the ISA must be exercised by the Executive as a collective body as a whole. The “internal thinking” of the Executive regarding the existence of a threat to national security before deciding on the arrest and detention is obvious – it was completely lacking. Syed made the stupid move to dump responsibility on the Police. Say what you may of the procedure for arrest and detention under the ISA – I think the police is empowered to make the initial arrest and authorise the initial short period of detention – the first requirement of the existence of a threat to national security and the need to invoke and execise ISA power to save the nation from that threat must first be based on a collective decision of the Executive, not the police, because the ISA is at its root an Act to confer an Executive power of arrest and detention without trial for the specific purpose of saving the nation from grave threats to national secuirty on the Executive as a constitutional institution not government administrative bodies e.g. the police. The Judiciary is completely bypassed and such drastic power cannot be simply handed or relegated to the police. Nor can it be execised by only a couple of Ministers. As we can see now, the recent exercise of the ISA powers not only bypassed the Judiciary, it bypassed the Executive as well. The end result if the Judiciary allowed such a manner of invocation and exercise of ISA powers would be that we are now under the despotic rule of a few Ministers or have become a police state.