Effective Rights

Without law there can be no order but without order, law can never be observed. The two important pillars of modern society live and breathe side by side. They protect us from all that is bad and all that is evil. Well that’s what happens in an ideal world.

Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. In fact we don’t live in an ideal country. The last week has brought up some issues that ought to be seen as the end of the road for the process of democracy our forefathers fought for.

Let us first look at the police force i.e. the guardians and protectors of this country. How are we to have any confidence in the police when they are more interested in OPS Bersih than they are in finding the worthless dog that did those terrible things to a child. They want to charge the parents with negligence. I believe it’s so ridiculous what the police are doing that it is self explanatory.

So many children are still missing and suddenly now the IGP starts to initiate a special victims unit to do more. Could not we learn from the west the bad things that happen as well? Could not we be more prepared to handle the situation?

Then we hear that a prominent police officer who is said to have 27 million in assets and so on. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t, but that should give us an implication on the volume of corruption happening in this country. What I am trying to impress here is not that that particular officer is corrupted but it seems the force is institutionally corrupted. We really and believe me really need a reform of the PDRM.

The judiciary represents all that is sacred about the protection of the law in a nation. It’s represents or stars as an icon of democracy. Being one of the three pillars that make a democratic country, the burden and responsibility on the judiciary is often great and underestimated.  

However, the judiciary is only as powerful as the members in it are. The integrity and the honourable conduct of its members make it the institution it is. Then we hear that a certain lawyer allegedly speaking to a certain judge about the appointment of judges and top judges. If the statements said were to be true, then we have a constitutional epidemic going on in this country.

There is the famous statements that the non-Malays are getting a bad deal in this country but if that conversation by the certain lawyer were to be used as evidence, it seems the Chinese i.e. prominent businessman and the Indian i.e. the lawyer are controlling the country by controlling the appointment of judges.  

Futhermore, we as the rakyat must also understand that what the judiciary is today is a knock on effect of the judicial crisis in the late 80’s. Just because this revelation has come out now, we cannot just blame the present administration. They only continued what was thought to them by their predecessors. There seems to be a systematic replacement of judges to suit the executive administering the country.

If one is conversant with the language of contractual law between a foreigner and a local, the foreigner always insist most of the time that the law governing the contract is to be English law and the seat of tribunal is to be Singapore. Is this not a sad state of affairs? The foreigners want to do business with us but they don’t want to be bound by our laws. Maybe the problem is not the law but how the law is administered.

On a global perspective, we do have a massive crisis of law and order in our hands. The only way forward is transparency and integrity in the way the judiciary and the police act. We need ROYAL enquiries into these matters and Parliament must hold the judiciary and police accountable for the state of affairs in this country if they are responsible. However, having a majority of the ruling coalition, are they really willing to do it?