One can justify that no action is taken because there is no hard evidence that judges’ appointments were brokered – however one cannot make a justification out of :-

“the brokering of judges may be morally wrong, but there are no specific laws against it. …His actions can undermine and erode the integrity of the judiciary, but things must be viewed from a legal perspective…moral and legal must be separated”.

This is “not correct”, “not correct” and “not correct” statement of law.

Come on lah – how could there be no specific laws against “brokering of judges”???

Influence peddling in relation to official position esp a judge position will constitute a corrupt act under any anti corruption legislation anywhere in the world….

It is an act of corruption to even broker/fix the referee in a “football” game, let alone a referee in the game of litigation in a court ie judge in relation to cases.

Brokering of judges will come squarely under purview of our anti corruption legislation, the MACC Act.

Under this Act, it is an offence to give “gratification” to a public official like a judge to procure his “performing or abstaining from performing or aiding in procuring, expediting, delaying, hindering or preventing the performance of, any official act” or “showing or forbearing to show any favour or disfavour” in his capacity as judge, with the expression “gratification” being defined in MACC as to include any offer of “any office, dignity, employment, contract of employment or services, and agreement to give employment or render services in any capacity”….

It is true that law and morality – though often intersecting- are not necessarily parallel/congruent in every instance.

[For example, it is criminal for a person to throw TBH out of 14th Floor of MACC building, Plaza Masalam, but it may not be criminal for another witness (not abetting/encouraging the criminal act in any way) but just to stand by and watch the perpetration of that crime without lifting even a finger to prevent or stop it – no matter how immoral or callous the non-involvement and indifference may be!]

This strange division between a crime and morality is based on the yardstick that an act no matter how immoral does not descend to level of being categorised a crime unless it “harms” other people. The benchmark has allways been drawn at “harm”.

The harm may be inflicted on another person or his property – say robbery, murder, stealing, rape, criminal breach of trust etc.

More so if the harm is inflicted on institutions like judiciary and fair administration of justice, because then the harm inflicted is not just on an institution but through that institution the harm is inflicted on just about everybody, actual and potential seeking, as litigants, justice in courts! So how could that (brokering of judges) be just immoral but not criminal when the harm on institutional integrity and its effects are vast and grave on society and potentially greater on larger number of people and not just one person???

///….But I am also saying that there are a lot of conmen in this world. Who knows he might have just acted when he was calling the so-called judges to impress…///

If judge fixing/brokering is corrupt act and a crime” the motives of the perpetrator – whether to impress others are irrelevant and not exculpate the act. When charges of criminal intimidation and sedition were brought against Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) based on what he wrote, did it matter an iota RPK’s motives and whether he was just trying to impress others with his half truths or lies as the authorities describe them?

The other part – “Should anyone act to advise the prime minister on the appointment of judges, this act itself cannot be taken as an offence” – yeah but this is sophisticated/fine skewing of the true issue since the Commission findings have nothing to do with anyone being proven as having called and advised the prime minister on the appointment of judges but what is proven is that someone called or took a call from a sitting judge, a public official, suggesting/implying that help would be given by way of advising the prime minister on the appointment of judges – that is the gravament of the charge – nevermind whether that (calling/advising the PM) was actually done, or if done, the then Prime Minister heeded or did not heed that advice.

This is a universal problem everywhere. Since time immemorial, the law of jungle has operated where the “fittest” & “strongest” have ruled the ordinary and the powerless masses. In the part, we had emperors and monarchs, and even today, we have military elites like (say) in Myanmar. To counter this, everyone favors “democracy”. It is derived from Greek word “demos”, meaning people, so “democracy” is people rule, not elite rule…It means people participating in major decisions affecting their lives. Since in mass society, each individual cannot just assert his say, people participation is supposed to be by system of elections of representatives who decide on behalf of those who elected them. However we still can’t run away from the law of the jungle. In no time the elected representatives become elites not representing the electors’ interest but their own vested interests to stay in power. This is easy to do. They divide and rule to stay in power. They tinker with the election rules and procedures. Once in control they delineate election boundaries best calculated to ensure they keep being re-elected back in every elections. Being in power they.also control all major information dissemination by media organisations requiring licensing. Through patronage, they control key figures at helm of all major institutions from judiciary, military, police, anti corruption agencies, educational and religious establishments, civil service, the whole works. They can do this because with power they control the economic resources of the nation, a part of which is harnessed to keep gravy train running, and their supporters in all major institutions economically satisfied to side them and not be neutral. They even collaborate with private sector and business, give them licences and certain monopolies so that the largesse earned bu business interest can in part be rechannelled back to the ruling elites as slush funds to take care of whomsoever needed to protect the interest of ruling elites to maintain and perpetuate power. This is where, as can be seen, the ruling elites of yesteryear (militarists and monarchists) have now been replaced by new “democratic” elites whose only democratic credential is that they are supposedly subject to a system of periodic re-election and reaffirmation of consent of the people to rule or get replaced. However they have so dominated the system and skewed, manipulated and fine tuned it that even with less than 50% of total votes, the new “democatic” elites can still win more than 50% of the so called popular votes. The key feature here, we learn is that the ruling elites in an oligarchy protects its own – its generals, field marshals, captains, even long after they have left service and retired in the sunsets. This is because it is important to give signal to present generals, field marshals, captains propping out the ruling class and those who are about to join in the future, that the ruling class they help are not ungrateful: it not only allows a generous pension fund (literally and figuratively) but also allows one to enjoy a good rest and peaceful retirement after a career of defending one’s political masters and their interest. It is to show gratitude that their services are not forgotten. They will not be haunted by specter of investigations, legal charges no matter latter how people discover their wrong doings and bray for their blood. Nor is it a good idea to expose those helpers on their wrong doings when the helpers also have something on one to retaliate. Thus this the way “democratic” political elites as a class with their associates perpetuate their vested interest in continuing in power. Its all the playing out of the same principle of law of the jungle by which the “fittest” & “strongest” in power have ruled and will endeavour to rule the ordinary and the powerless masses to the first mentioned’s benefit ostensibly in the pretext of benefit to those they rule or who put them in position of rule in the first instance. Why else they call politics the art of deceiving and manipulating people in order to gain and stay in power?