By Justice Seeker | March 08, 2012 The Malaysian Insider
MARCH 8 — The Federal Court may have been justified in throwing the book and jailing imam Hoslan Husin, had they done so on the day of the offence.
Because what he did, by tossing his shoes at them, was contempt in the face of the court and the offended quorum of judges would have been within their rights to hear the case there and then.
But the judges and the judiciary did not want the humiliation to go any further (that is why mainstream newspapers were asked by the Palace of Justice not to report the incident), so they allowed Hoslan to leave court.
The problem was that there is such a thing as online media and the case was reported widely. With the news now in the public domain, the powers that be had to swing into action. And today’s one-year sentence was the culmination of the indignation of the same quorum who were insulted last month.
Justice must be seen to be done, and in this case, I dare say it wasn’t. The Federal Court judges who were entitled to hear the contempt in the face of the court hearing on the same day should not have sat in judgement of Hoslan today.
Because they are “interested” parties. These are the same judges who allowed Hoslan to walk free then, suggesting that they did not feel slighted by his action.
Now, after reading the reports and probably being ridiculed over the incident by friends and foes, they surely are not disinterested parties or dispassionate.
The one-year jail sentence will give the impression that this was score-settling.
It was against the tenets of natural justice for this same quorum to hear this belated contempt of court hearing. They should have stood down.
Justice must be seen to be done. Always. It is even arguable that instead of knocking out Hoslan’s appeal on a technicality of being out of time, the judges should have exercised better judgement and given him some leeway because he was not represented by legal counsel and would not have known about legal technicalities.
But that was an opportunity to show common sense, and today was an opportunity missed to show the even hand of justice.
Note: You can bet that the docile mainstream press will report today’s case in full. This is the same press who did not report even a word of the written judgement from the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder trial!