Monday, March 24, 2008

It Is Dr M Who Must Apologise To Victimised Judges, Not Present Government: Karpal

DAP national chairman Karpal Singh has called on former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to apologise to the judges victimized in the 1998 judicial crisis. “It is not the present administration that convened those tribunals. It was Dr Mahathir who initiated it for his own political reasons,” he claimed. “Calling the present administration to apologise is not a step in the right direction.”

Karpal was responding to Law Minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim’s proposal that the Federal Government must make an open apology to those victimised during the crisis which led to the sacking of then Lord President Tun Mohd Salleh Abbas and Supreme Court judges, Tan Sri Wan Sulaiman Pawanteh and Datuk George Seah.

According to Karpal, under Article 125 (3) of the Federal Constitution, a judge could not be removed unless a tribunal was convened at the behest of the Prime Minister, who advises the Yang Dipertuan Agong to convene a tribunal, to remove a judge on grounds of misconduct.

“The Prime Minister who advised then Yang Dipertuan Agong , Sultan of Johor was Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad,” he said.

He said it was Dr. Mahathir who should aplogise to Mohd Salleh Abbas, Seah, the family of deceased Wan Sulaiman and the benefits due to them up to date and thereafter should be reinstated.

Karpal also called on the King to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry, whose terms of reference should be to decide if the tribunals were set up on sufficient basis and grounds.

“The royal commission of inquiry would establish whether there was ‘misconduct on the part of Dr Mahathir’ and if there was any abuse of the Federal Constitution,” he said.

When questioned on the Bar Council’s acceptance of the apology, Karpal criticised the Bar Council for not looking at Zaid’s proposal in depth. “The issue in fact requires an emergency meeting for the entire Bar Council to decide, not just the chairman,” he said.

Karpal also described Zaid as not “having the credibility or high moral ground” to speak on issues affecting the legal fraternity.

“He should not have been brought into Cabinet through the backdoor via the Senate. He was not even given a seat to contest,” he said.

On the calls to ban party hopping, Karpal said the Prime Minister should publicly announce whether the government was prepared to amend the Federal Constitution to outlaw party hopping as the DAP supports the move.

“If the Prime Minister is not prepared to make the move, then I propose a private member’s Bill to seek the amendment to outlaw party switching,” he said. (NST)

***** Karpal is right about Dr Mahathir being the person who has to do the apologising. But that's not going to happen is it?
Image - Source

Labels: , , ,

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

opening of the grave & digging out the rotted bones will set loose the ghosts and devils which will haunt at least 1 generation of Malaysians , justice is always sinister and serves a certain devilish purpose

10:32 PM GMT+8  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

tgk ni hah

http://kucheng.myminicity.com/ind

12:17 AM GMT+8  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Totally agree with Karpal.

Mahathir has caused a lot of pain to our nation including many of our fine institutions and several outstanding persons in order to sustain his thirst for power.

Unfortunately, he will never admit that he was at fault and justify his action as protecting the nation's interest.

For many of us, he is 100% liable for our nation's ills.

8:04 AM GMT+8  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The mamak should be impeached and brought to trial. If guilty, stripped off citizenship and sent back to Tamilnadu

8:39 AM GMT+8  
Blogger chineng said...

Karpal is perfectly correct, correct, correct. The present government of Abdullah has nothing to do with the wrong doings. Why make the present government apologize? That does not make sense at all.
The real culprit should be brought out to face justice for the sake of justice.

9:41 AM GMT+8  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

8:04 and 8:39 totally agree with. The thick-skinned bugger still has the nuts to criticize other people, to the point of calling people the terms that actually describes himself. If he was so good for over 20 years, then why did he leave such a mess (Bank Bumi, MAS, etcetc) and didn't clean up his team, which led to the present situation im UMNO? Is it because he couldn't tell clean from dirty and thinks he's God of Malaysia?

10:01 AM GMT+8  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Agree with Mr. Singh!. Tun Mahathir was a good PM as far as the development is concerned BUT he also destroyed the judiciary and he has to face it.

Question is... do we have the political willingness to bring to court?

2:40 PM GMT+8  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Karpal is living up to his name and talking crap again. To much chappati and dhal perhaps?

Karpal is asking for an apology based on his "personal" view according to the letter sent out to Dr M and not because he has solid / point blank / unquestionable evidence that can be used by the law that Mahathir is directly to blame for the judiciaries decision.

If we can demand apologies from big names due to our "personal" views. Then I want an apology from Karpal as I "personally" think he is nothing more than a loud mouth trouble causer with a drinking problem.

It's obvious the man is just trying to exact some revenge due to his time spent in ISA (those we're the days). For those who say Mahathir has caused great pain to our nation, I "can't" agree more. It's really painful looking at the Twin Towers, it's really painful taking an LRT, it's really painful crossing over the Penang Bridge...

At the end of the day, Mahathir was just one man who did more than anyone in this god-forbidden country has ever done. You say don't blame the administration for the leader - I say don't blame the leader for the administration.

Terima Kasih,

10:32 AM GMT+8  

Post a Comment

<< Home

!-- End #sidebar -->
Malaysia Blog Sites Listing Check Web Rank World Top Blogs - Blog TopSites hits Blog Portal