Archive for category Perak
How to spot the Usurper between Ganesan and Sivakumar?
By NH Chan
News item in MalaysiaKini – July 24, 2009
I found this news item in MalaysiaKini – an online news portal:
Speaker vs. Speaker: Police report over letterhead
Humayun Kabir Jul 24, 09
Barisan Nasional state assembly speaker R Ganesan lodged a police report with the Ipoh district police headquarters accusing his Parkatan Rakyat speaker V Sivakumar of illegally using the speaker’s official letterhead twice to communicate with him.Ganesan said the ‘abuse of official letterheads’ happened twice – Sivakumar’s July 14 reply to his affidavit and summoning Ganesan to an inquiry on July 27.
Ganesan claimed that he was appointed as the legal speaker on May 7 to replace Sivakumar and thus the latter had used the letterheads ‘illegally’.
Read the rest of this entry »
Priority of Packaging Over Performance – Najib Razak’s First One Hundred Days
Posted by Kit in Bakri Musa, Najib Razak, Perak on Monday, 20 July 2009
By M. Bakri Musa
I would have expected that the successor to the incompetent and do-nothing Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has minimal difficulty shining as the bar had been lowered substantially. Yet despite that, Prime Minister Najib Razak has failed to impress us in his first 100 days. His priority is packaging over performance.
Najib may be more poised, his voice less grating, and he stays awake in meetings (Tun Mahathir gave him top marks for that!), but in content and performance, he is of the same bottom-league kayu belukar quality as Abdullah, and far from the sturdy meranti quality we long yearn in our leaders. Abdullah lasted slightly over five years; it took time to see through his vacuity. Now sensitized, voters are less tolerant and less forgiving of incompetence. Najib will have an even briefer tenure.
Najib’s two signature and high profile initiatives in his first 100 days are his 1Malaysia.com.my website and his micromanagement of Perak’s legislative politics. The first illustrates Najib’s slick packaging; the second, the empty content and inept performance.
Read the rest of this entry »
Doing the nation a favour, the Najib way
Posted by Kit in Augustine Anthony, Perak on Friday, 17 July 2009
by Augustine Anthony
First it was Yb Lim Kit Siang and now Yb M. Kulasegaran joining the concern few leaders of the opposition that prime minister Dato’ Sri Najib Tun Razak’s popularity is a warning to the bickering politicians within the opposition to put aside their differences and present a united and strong opposition or face irrelevance.
Beyond the warring ruling and opposition parties, it must be noted that the approval rating for the prime minister in reality augurs well for the nation as a whole for various reasons among others.
That such high approval rating of 65% within the first 100 days and the need to maintain a continuing rise in the approval rating of the prime minister throughout the period leading to the 13th general election will from now onwards be keenly observed by Malaysians.
Part 2 – Gobbledegook and regurgitation in the written judgments of the Court of Appeal in Zambry v Nizar: Postscript – Zainun Ali JCA’s judgment
By NH Chan
Postscript
On Tuesday, July 7 2009 I posted an article under the above title on the web with various news portals. At that time I only have the written judgments of two of the judges Raus Sharif and Ahmad Maarop JJCA. I have just received the third judgment that of Zainun Ali JCA from Mr. Edmund Bon of loyarburok.com through Mr. Ngan Siong Hing of Ipoh for which I am most grateful. Below is my critique of the written judgment of Zainun Ali JCA.
The points that really matter
As I have said it before in the first part of this article, there are only two points that really matter in the appeal of the case in question. They involve the reading of two clauses in Article 16 of the Perak Constitution and an understanding of what the clauses mean. A very experienced judge, the late Lord Justice Salmon in a talk which he gave to young members of the English Bar (Some Thoughts on the Traditions of the English Bar) said:
…..remember this, in few cases, however complex, is there usually more than one point that matters. Very seldom are there more than two and never, well hardly ever, more than three. Discover the points that really matter. Stick to them and discard the rest.
Actually, Salmon U was revealing to budding advocates the mind of a judge. The young advocates are informed, before they embark on their career, that a judge makes his decision by discovering the point that really matters or, exceptionally, the points that really matter. This revelation should place aspiring advocates on the right direction to becoming good advocates.
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;
The regurgitation of not administering justice according to law in the written judgment of Nik Hashim FCJ in Jamaluddin & ors v Sivakumar
Flashback
To refresh your memory, I refer to the report in the New Straits Times of Friday, April 10, 2009:
PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has declared that three assemblymen who quit their parties are still members of the Perak state legislature.
This follows an unanimous ruling by a five-men bench yesterday which ruled that “The Election Commission is the rightfulll entity to establish if there was a casual vacancy in the Perak state legislature,” said Federal Court judge Tan Sri Alauddin Mohd Sheriff.
Sitting with him were Datuk Arifin Zakaria, Datuk Nik Hashim Nik Abdul Rahman, Datuk Sen S Augustine Paul and Datuk James Foong.
Last month, Party Keadilan Rakyat’s Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi (Bebrang) and Mohd Osman Jailu (Changkat Jering), together with DAP’s Hew Yit Foong (Jelapang), filed an urgent application for the Federal Court to decide their matter.
The three wanted a declaration whether it was the Election Commissioner or the Perak Speaker (V Sivakumar) had the final say in determining a vacancy. In February, Sivakumar, using resignation letters signed by the three, had declared the seats vacant.
He informed the Election Commission, but the commission refused to hold by-elections on the ground that there was ambiguity over whether the assemblymen had resigned voluntarily.
Following this newspaper report, I wrote an article which was posted on several portals on the Internet titled “When justice is not administered according to law“. This is what I said: Read the rest of this entry »
BN on the defensive in first week of Parliament
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, Parliament, Perak on Friday, 19 June 2009
We have just ended the first week of Parliament and we see the Barisan Nasional in total defensive, unable to give a proper and satisfactory accounting of the many burning issues in the country resulting in the continuous erosion of public confidence in the credibility, integrity and legitimacy of Datuk Seri Najib Razak as the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia.
The 25-minute ruckus at the start of the first day in Parliament on 15th June following the swearing-in of the PAS MP for Bukit Gantang, Datuk Seri Mohamad Nizar Jamaluddin, when he shocked everyone with loud and righteous cries of “Hidup Rakyat. Bubar DUN” served one important purpose – to focus national attention on the most shameful episode in the 52-year history of Malaysian parliamentary history, the unethical, undemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional power grab in Perak based on three “political frogs” who had to hide from the public for fear of popular condemnation for more than four-hand-a-half months!
I confess I was shocked when Nizar, in the podium of the House, shouted “Hidup Rakyat. Bubar DUN” with his raised fist, as I had not expected him to do that, but I was pleasantly shocked, as he had highlighted the deep-seated feelings of all Malaysians concerned about justice and democracy.
Read the rest of this entry »
Congrats Zaki for being conferred a “Tun” but where is Court of Appeal judgment in Nizar vs Zambry case?
Congrats to Chief Justice Tun Zaki Azmi for being conferred a “Tun” on the occasion of the Yang di Pertuan Agong’s birthday on Saturday.
But where is the Court of Appeal judgment in the Nizar vs Zambry case after its five-minute shotgun unanimous decision 18 days ago overturning the landmark decision of Justice Datuk Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim of Kuala Lumpur High Court by declaring Datuk Zambry Abdul Kadir (self-claimed 3-in-1 Mandela, Gandhi, King) as the lawful Perak Mentri Besar?
Court of Appeal judge Datuk Md Raus Sharif had promised on May 22 that the written judgment would be made available in a week when Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin’s counsel Sulaiman Abdullah gave notice of leave application to the Federal Court to appeal, but it is now 18 days since the Court of Appeal decision.
Read the rest of this entry »
Najib’s great analysis about failings of BN leaders with himself as foremost example
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, Perak on Monday, 8 June 2009
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has made a great analysis about Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders too obsessed with positions and failing to “learn and change” after the political tsunami electoral defeat last year – except he did not realise he was describing himself as such a foremost BN leader.
Speaking at the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) annual assembly opening yesterday, Najib scolded BN leaders who were too obsessed with party posts, saying they should focus on the people and regain support for the ruling federal government coalition after its dismal Election 2008 results.
This is the Malaysian Insider report of Najib’s speech yesterday: Read the rest of this entry »
Najib – stop current police madness, end debilitating Perak crisis and unite Malaysians to face world’s worst economic crisis with Malaysia in recession
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, Perak, Police on Wednesday, 27 May 2009
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should stop the current police madness, end the debilitating Perak crisis and unite Malaysians to face the world’s worst economic crisis in a century with Malaysia in official recession this year as the country’s GDP is expected to be in contraction of between one and 2 per cent.
The almost daily reports of current police madness, with the arrest of 21 persons in Ipoh yesterday for involvement in a peaceful hunger strike in protest against the unethical, undemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional power grab in Perak has taken gross abuses of police power to a new height.
At a time when the police should be going all-out to combat the endemic crime wave in the country to make Malaysians, tourists and investors safe, a fundamental prerequisite of the nation’s international competitiveness, the police are shocking Malaysians with one outrage after another in launching indiscriminate arrests against peaceful non-violent protestors for wearing black, singing birthday song, taking part in candlelight vigils and trespass of DAP hqrs by conducting a police raid without a search warrant, first time in DAP’s 43-year history and never allowed to be done by the first five Prime Ministers in the country. Read the rest of this entry »
Do take the trouble to understand before you find fault with the judges of the Court of Appeal
by N H Chan
Before you go about judging the judges of the Court of Appeal on their five minute oral decision which they handed down on Friday, May 22, 2009, please bear in mind the wise words of the most liberal of American judges, judge Learned Hand who once wrote – The Spirit of Liberty, p 110:
… while it is proper that the people should find fault when the judges fail, it is only reasonable that they should recognise the difficulties. … Let them be severely brought to book, when they go wrong, but by those who will take the trouble to understand.
I shall now try to help you take the trouble to understand the oral findings of the Court of Appeal. First of all we will look at what the New Straits Times, Saturday. May 23, 2009 has to say:
PUTRAJAYA. … In allowing the appeal by Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir that he was constitutionally appointed as menteri besar by the sultan on Feb 6, Court of Appeal judge Datuk Md Raus Sharif said there was no clear provision in the state Constitution that a vote of no confidence against Nizar must be taken in the assembly.
New police crackdown in Ipoh?
From http:// twitter.com/limkitsiang
26/05/09 16:19
Have to run from Thai Parliament and the twitter of the disgraceful police episode today from Bangkok ends here as well
26/05/09 16:18
All 14 heroes and heroines walking out now to the Ipoh police hqrs gate – to close another Day of Infamy in the Perak capital.
26/05/09 16:17
Yes, Kula the 14th and last to be released, on personal bond of RM1,000 and to report back to the police station on 26/6/09
26/05/09 16:16
MP Ipoh Barat Kulasegaran – where are you?
26/05/09 16:15
Assemblywoman Lim Pek Har 13th to be released
26/05/09 16:14
Most famous Speaker in the Commonweath V. Sivakumar signed and released
Read the rest of this entry »
Najib is the primary target in Penanti by-election – referendum on his first 2 months as PM
The Penanti by-election has been described as a dull and unexciting contest because of the absence of the Barisan Nasional candidate.
The PKR and PR candidate, Mansor Othman is challenged by three independent candidates. The real battle however is not between Mansor and the three independent candidates, but with the main protoganist publicly “hiding” from the contest, the Barisan Nasional and its leader, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
Although there is no BN candidate, Najib is undoubtedly the primary target in the Penanti by-election, which is a referendum on the credibility, integrity and legitimacy of Najib in his second month as Prime Minister
Last night, Najib allowed the police to do what five previous Prime Ministers, Tengku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein Onn, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah had never done – police raid on DAP Hqrs in Petaling Jaya, the first time in 43 years, as if the DAP is a terrorist organisation when we had demonstrated our commitment to peaceful, democratic and constitutional change for over four decades.
Read the rest of this entry »
Losers On All Sides
By M. Bakri Musa,
It reflects how low the public’s respect for our judiciary is that a unanimous reversal by the appellate court of a High Court’s decision should be greeted with such widespread scorn.
We must await the Appeal Court’s written judgment so we could weight its wisdom, legal and otherwise, and compare it to that of High Court Judge Aziz Rahim who made the initial ruling in Nizar vs. Zamry. Justice Aziz gave his within a week. Let us hope the Appeal Court judges, being more senior and higher in the judicial pecking order, would do better and come out with theirs faster. After all they have to set the proper example.
At least the Appeal Court had the common sense to have a quorum of three to hear the appeal. It would have been better on a case of such import involving fundamental constitutional issues to be heard with the full quorum. At least those judges showed better judgment if not common sense than Appeal Court Judge Ramli who in his wisdom decided to hear by himself the appeal on the associated stay of execution.
Read the rest of this entry »
Emergency assembly an option to end Perak crisis? Forget about it Najib, impasse will get worse. Only option – hold elections now!
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, Perak on Sunday, 24 May 2009
Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said today that an emergency meeting of the Perak State Assembly is an option to end the political and constitutional impasse in Perak.
Let me tell Najib – forget about it, as such an emergency Assembly meeting is no viable option and it could only make the impasse worse, dragging the nearly four-month-old political and constitutional crisis and stalemate indefinitely into the future.
What is worse, the protracted political and constitutional crisis and stalemate will stand as the strongest testament debunking Najib’s slogan of “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now”.
What right has anyone to talk about 1Malaysia when he is incapable of promoting 1Perak, in fact single-handedly responsible for the political and constitutional impasse in orchestrating the unethical, undemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional power grab since early February?
Najib should bite the bullet and agree that the only way to end the political and constitutional impasse in Perak is to dissolve Perak State Assembly and return the mandate to Perakians in a state-wide general elections so that Malaysians can turn from the Perak stalemate to reunite to face the worst global economic crisis in a century. Read the rest of this entry »
Perak – the epicentre of Umno fault-line
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, Perak on Saturday, 23 May 2009
by Augustine Anthony
22.3.09
(This article was written in anticipation of the Court of Appeal judgment in Nizar vs Zambry)
The judgment of Justice Abdul Aziz Abd. Rahim in the case of Nizar vs Zambry has attained clairvoyance status.
It had positioned the institution of rulers above politics, dignified the sultans and preserved the revered constitutional monarchy for generations to come.
In the ancient times the announcement of gestation or birth of crown prince will usually send sages and spiritual leaders into solitude in meditation and prayers in the harsh wilderness with the hope that the ruler to come will be benevolent to the subjects. History bears testimony of such adoration with monuments and poems of virtues and valour of such kings. Read the rest of this entry »
5-minute finding (not judgment) of Ct of Appeal shot-gun session declaring Zambry lawful Perak MB – hydra-headed monster claims another victim
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Court, Judiciary, Najib Razak, Perak on Friday, 22 May 2009
The hydra-headed monster of the Perak crisis has claimed another victim with the 5-minute finding (and not judgment) of Court of Appeal shot-gun session declaring Zambry lawful Perak Mentri Besar.
All who packed into the Court of Appeal in the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya to hear its judgment in the Nizar vs Zambry appeal could not believe that the whole shot-gun session was over in five minutes of delivery, not of a judgment, but findings of the Court of Appeal.
There was no reasoned grounds of judgment but mere findings of the Court of Appeal in an unanimous decision, i.e. 3 – 0.
As Professor Shad Faruqui had presciently written in his weekly newspaper column, the Perak crisis has become “a hydra-headed monster that cannot be eliminated by ding-dong judicial decisions”, and today, the hydra-headed monster has claimed another victim with the five-minute finding (not judgment) of the Court of Appeal shot-gun session declaring Datuk Zambry Abdul Kadir as the lawful Perak Mentri Besar.
Read the rest of this entry »
Zambry’s first Black 100 Days as squatter/usurper Perak MB – will Perak be Umno’s graveyard and Zambry the cause of Najib’s downfall as the last Umno PM?
Today is Datuk Zambry Abdul Kadir’s 100 days as the squatter and usurper Perak Mentri Besar – and the question on everybody’s mind on Zambry’s first Black 100 Days is whether Perak would be Umno’s graveyard in the 13th national general election and Zambry the cause of Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s downfall as the last Umno Prime Minister in Malaysia.
Professor Shad Saleem Faruqi has coined the most apt and powerful imagery when he likened the Perak political and constitutional crisis to a “hydra-headed monster that cannot be eliminated by ding-dong judicial decisions”.
Shad Faruqi opined that recourse to the courts is pointless and called for a stop to “this insane and naked show of unprincipled politics”.
The only way to end the hydra-headed monster of the Perak political and constitutional crisis is to return to first principles of democracy and the Constitution as spelt out by the landmark Justice Datuk Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim judgment on the Nizar vs Zambry case last Monday that once a mentri besar is appointed, he is only answerable to the state legislative assembly and he could only be removed by a vote of no-confidence in the State Assembly and not by the Sultan.
Read the rest of this entry »
Abdul Aziz judgment on Nizar case
Today the Court of Appeal at the Palace of Justice, Putrajaya is hearing the appeal against the landmark judgment of Justice Datuk Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim in the Nizar vs Zambry case delivered last Monday, 11th May 2009 declaring Nizar as the lawful Perak Mentri Besar.
Nizar is not getting a five-member Court of Appeal panel. The three judges hearing Nizar’s application to discharge Zambry’s “stay order” obtained by a single-judge Court of Appeal within 24 hours of the historic judgment and Zambry’s appeal against the Kuala Lumpur High Court judgment are justices Md Raus Sharif, Zainun Ali and Ahmad Maarop.
As I said in my tweet two hours ago:
“Parties agree that appeal proper b heard 1st and if at the end of hear’g ct cant give decision then discharge of stay will have 2 b heard.”
While we wait for the outcome from the Court of Appeal, the landmark Abdul Aziz judgment which illuminates the complicated terrain thrown up by the Perak constitutional crisis is worth reading (here).
Read the rest of this entry »
Shad Faruqi’s article on Perak crisis becoming a “hydra-headed monster” should be compulsory reading for Najib and Cabinet
Professor Shad Faruqi’s latest Star weekly column “Reflecting on the Law” on “Put interest of the nation first” and how the Perak crisis has become a “hydra-headed monster” should be compulsory reading for the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his Cabinet.
Shad Faruqi has made many points which I had tried in the past three -and-a-half months to communicate to the Prime Minister and the Barisan Nasional leaders but to no avail.
For instance, Shad Faruqi started his article thus:
“THE Perak political crisis can be likened to a malignant cancer that is voraciously spreading to the lymph nodes of our other institutions – the Sultanate, the judiciary, the federal executive, the civil service, the police, the law officers of the Crown, the court registry, the Anti-Corruption Commission and the Election Commission.
The longer we wait, the farther the affliction will spread. It is time, therefore, to stop this madness, this divisiveness, this polarisation.”
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