The mainstream media has repeatedly reported that the stay of execution order granted by the court of appeal means that Zambry Abdul Kadir is now the menteri besar of Perak. The Zambry camp, unsurprisingly, has also chosen to interpret it this way.

This could not be further from the truth.

Let's investigate a conventional stay of execution against a death penalty. Say, death row inmate X, is scheduled to be executed the next day but he receives a stay of execution.

The stay of execution's purpose is not to take inmate X off death row, but merely to defer the date of the execution.

The execution is delayed, and the legal onus is still on inmate X's defence team to overturn the court's guilty verdict and prove beyond any reasonable doubt, that he is innocent.

The legal onus, does not fall onto the prosecution to prove inmate X's guilt as it has already been proven in ourt. A stay of execution does not mean that inmate X is off the death row - he is still on death row but his execution is merely delayed.

Let's now apply the precedents and rules of a stay of execution onto the Perak case.

Inmate X's stay of execution still means that he is on death row. His status is still as a ‘death row inmate' as determined by the court.

This can be applied to Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin. His status is still ‘Perak menteri besar' as determined by the court. The legal onus is still on the other side to overturn the initial declaration. This applies to Zambry.

The legal onus is still on Zambry to overturn the initial declaration. The legal onus is not on the prosecution to prove inmate X's guilt. The execution order still stands, and if it is not overturned, or if status quo is maintained, inmate X will be executed.

This also can be applied to Nizar. The status quo, as determined by the high court is that Nizar is the menteri besar.

In fact, the only thing that the stay of execution changes is the carrying out of the execution. Now herein lays the illogic of our court of appeals.

The office of the menteri besar cannot be vacant, hence Nizar is the menteri besar and Zambry doesn't come into the picture as he is an ordinary state assembly person.

So what does the stay of execution mean? The purpose of a stay of execution is to prevent any irreversible decision that would jeopardise the court's future rulings - in inmate X's case, his death.

So the meaning of the stay of execution would be that Nizar would be barred from carrying out any irreversible decision that would jeopardise the court's future rulings. That would be, some would argue and herein lies the debate, a dissolution of the Perak state assembly.

But as far as who is the menteri besar is concerned, it is Nizar and he should be the one clocking in for work.

The court of appeals could have saved itself from a mountain of scorn by just granting an injunction to bar Nizar from seeking to dissolve the Perak state assembly.