“Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is unlikely to be arrested until a new DNA Bill is passed in Parliament later this month”, according to influential daily Nanyang Siang Pau, quoting unnamed sources on Sunday (referred to in yhsiew’s post above).

That is because our solicitor general assigned the burden of making a determination on the case is not so ‘Mr Bean’ after all. He knows that it is folly for him – no matter what the political pressures – to proceed with a charge without reviwing and obtaining solid forensic evidence of DNA (better still verified by foreign experts).

Certainly he is not going to take personal responsibility of being assigned the blame of formulating a charge based on fabricated or inadequate evidence against an Opposition leader, who by a change of political fortunes, might well sit at the helm as next prime minister of the country!

So the central question is will Anwar have the chance to diffuse the threat of a sodomy II charge and become the PM???

The answer is affirmative “yes” (1) IF what Nanyang Siang Pau reported were true – and what is more important (2) IF there were credibility in what Anwar predicted ie that Pakatan Rakyat (“PR”) would secure sufficient cross overs and defections from BN to command the majority in Dewan Rakyat to move the vote of no confidence and form the government by September 16th 2008 which is only 43 days from now!

This is because such a Bill making it illegal for anyone to refuse DNA testing in criminal cases, even if tabled later part of this month, has to go through the following processes:

· Debated in the Dewan Rakyat and passed with BN majority over PR’s number of votes;

· Then if passed in lower House (Dewan Rakyat) it has to be presented to Upper House (Dewan Negara) for 3 readings, the 1st the legislation’s proposer presents it to the Senate, at the 2nd, the bill is debated, at the 3rd only a vote is taken whether to pass or reject the bill;

· If passed by Dewan negara, then the bill is presented to the King for royal assent;

· If the King approves the Bill still has to be gazetted to be law;

· After gazetting the police still have to make a formal application to Court to have Anwar provide the DNA;

· Anwar’s lawyers can institute all kinds of peremptory and procedural challenges to delay Court’s hearing of the application (There will be fertile grounds for objections especially for a bill/legislation passed in a hurry that has little time to work out rthe ambiguities and loopholes).

What I am trying to say is that by the time all the above procedures and processes have been worked out to get his DNA, it would have way passed the 16th September dead line that Anwar said he would form the government rendering such an exercise academic….

So if Anwar has any credility in what he said about the crossovers by Sept 16th this legislation in practical terms will pose no problem at all to him.

///Hey! Atkinson is an Oxford or Canbridge grad you know.
Pak Lah????????///
Well at least he got a SIL from same university as Rowan Atkinson to run state of affairs or affairs of the state from 5th floor.