Archive for June 28th, 2010
Court orders water documents revealed
Posted by Kit in Good Governance, Judiciary on Monday, 28 June 2010
Malaysiakini
Hafiz Yatim
Jun 28, 10
The federal government has seven days to disclose the contents of the audit report and water concession agreement entered between it, the Selangor government and Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (Syabas).
This follows a landmark ruling at the High Court today allowing the documents – which were classified by the government as being under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) – to be made public.
The decision was made by judicial commissioner Hadhariah Syed Ismail, who ruled the government’s refusal to disclose the reports did not consider the expectation of members of the public who are adversely affected by the decision. Read the rest of this entry »
Gambling: It’s in Malaysia’s genes
by Dr. Lim Teck Ghee
Centre for Policy Initiatives
27 June 2010
Life as a gamble
The cabinet decision not to issue a sports betting licence to Ascot Sports Sdn Bhd is the right one but it was made for the wrong reasons. According to prime minister Najib Razak, the reason for not legalizing sports betting was “the impact it will have from the perspective of religion and politics.”
To get a proper perspective of the issue, it is necessary to get off the religious and political high horse and acknowledge that we are a nation that loves the occasional flutter. And also let us admit that there’s nothing wrong with gambling so long as it is not taken to extreme lengths and becomes a pathological, compulsive or destructive habit.
In a sense, all of life and the various decisions that we make are gambles. Although it may be too much to say that we all have gambling in our genes, scientists have been debating on the extent to which gambling is a manifestation of human behavior for a long time – at least during the last 200 years or so. Read the rest of this entry »
UMNO’s Opportunistic Ulama
Posted by Kit in Bakri Musa, Islamic state, UMNO on Monday, 28 June 2010
by M. Bakri Musa
Like his predecessors Abdullah Badawi and Dr. Mahathir, Prime Minister Najib Razak endlessly proclaims Malaysia to be an Islamic state. Now with 40 young ulama joining the party, Najib must feel that his assertion to be the truth. He could not be more wrong.
Yes, ulama play a central role in an Islamic state. In his book, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman attributed the longevity and eminence of earlier Islamic states to the critical role of the ulama and scholars.
The Islamic governing principle is simple. Rulers are to govern according to God’s law, as stated in the Quran and elaborated in the hadith (sayings and practices of Prophet Muhammad, s.a.w.). The central tenet is, “Command good and forbid evil!” As long as the ruler fulfills this obligation, his power and authority are legitimate and deemed divinely-sanctioned.
It was a tribute to their political skills and intellectual prowess that those early scholars were able to formulate from the Quran and hadith a set of laws – the Shari’a – that today still governs the everyday lives of Muslims, even those not living in Islamic states. At its time the Shari’a represented a quantum leap in the recognition of basic human dignity and rights. As Feldman noted, “For most of its history, Islamic law offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world.”
The central precept of the Shari’a is that all, rulers and the ruled alike, are governed by it. No one, not even the sultan, is exempted. That is the rule of law at its core.
The ulama’s other major contribution was that they exerted the necessary checks and balances on the powers of the rulers. It was the scholars, not the rulers, who determined what was “good” or “evil.” A ruler had to abide by the decisions of the ulama, for not doing so would mean deviating from God’s law, a sure route towards de-legitimatizing the ruler’s authority.
These two central elements (fidelity to the rule of law and institutionalized checks and balances on the powers of the rulers by the ulama) accounted for the remarkable success and endurance of those early Islamic states. Read the rest of this entry »
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