Archive for July 7th, 2009

Gobbledegook and regurgitation galore in the two written judgments of the Court of Appeal in Zambry v Nizar Jamaluddin

By NHChan

Prologue

I shall start with an aside on the dictionary definition of the two words which feature in the title of this article.

Gobbledegook means unintelligible language.

Regurgitate means repeat information without understanding it. Regurgitation is the noun.

After you have read the article you should have an inkling of what I am trying to suggest with the words. You can then judge for yourself.

There are only two points that really matter in this appeal: Clauses (2)(a) and (6) of Article 16

Let us see if ordinary people like us can understand Clauses (2)(a) and (6) of Article 16 of the Constitution of Perak better than the judges of this Court of Appeal.

There are only two points that really matter in the appeal. They are Clauses (2)(a) and (6) of Article 16 and they read:

(2) (a) His Royal Highness shall first appoint as Menteri Besar to preside over the Executive Council a member of the Legislative Assembly who in his judgment is likely to command the confidence of the majority of the members of the Assembly;

Read the rest of this entry »

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PTPTN and MARA updates

Just spoken to Chairman of Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional (PTPTN), Dr. Mohamad Shahrum bin Oshman, who is also MP for Lipis, on the complaint in this blog on PTPTN loan interest by Tee from Klang who just graduated from Multimedia University and wanted to begin payment for his RM66,000 PTPTN loan.

However, he was told that the old interest rate of 3% still applies although Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had announced that the new rate of 1% would take effect from June 2008.

Mohamad Shahrum confirmed that the PTPTN interest is 1% and those who had paid 3% from June last year would have the excess credited to their account.

Thanks Mohamad Shahrum for the instant clarification which should put the issue to rest. Read the rest of this entry »

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Kong Choy should answer in the PAC the five questions I asked him in Parliament in November 2007 on the PKFZ scandal but which he had been evading for two years

An online MCA website, malaysianmirror.com, has reported on the willingness of former Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal.

Like his predecessor Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik, Chan should give clear-cut assurance that he will not emulate their former boss, former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir in succumbing to a sudden attack of selective amnesia when appearing before the PAC in the way Mahathir succumbed to selective amnesia when appearing before the Lingam Videotape Royal Commission of Inquiry in January 2008, where he had to say “I cannot remember” or its equivalent 14 times during his 90-minute testimony.

In his appearance before the PAC, Kong Choy should answer the five questions I posed to him in Parliament in November 2007, but which he had been evading for two years, viz: Read the rest of this entry »

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PPSMI – Are the shoes of an Education Minister in Malaysia too big for Muhyiddin?

Umno Youth Leader, Khairy Jamaluddin admitted in an interview with Sin Chew Jit Poh yesterday that Malaysia should be a A+ country but it could only manage a C!

This is because of decades of Barisan Nasional bad governance and misguided policies which fail to fully exploit the human and natural resources of the country for the national good so as to be able to continuously upgrade our international competitiveness to better position the country to face the challenges of globalization, liberalization and information and communications technology.

A good illustration is the disastrous PPSMI (Teaching Science and Mathematics in English) decision making guinea pigs of some four million Malaysian pupils whether in the national, Chinese or Tamil primary schools in the past six years for “a cure which is worse than the disease”!

Have we got in Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin a new Education Minister who has the political will and professional competence to undo the six-year damage from these unprofessional educational experiments to lead the Malaysian education system to a new era of professionalism, excellence and global status?
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