On June 13, the media reports: ‘MB can't be suspended' as the contempt is not provided for in the Perak constitution. The question is, what is the role of the judges?

As any right-thinking person would say, they are to be independent and to declare what the law states or provides for. But are they allowed to go on a fishing expedition? The answer should be in the negative.

Now the situation which was before the federal court was not about a statute or law passed by Parliament.

It was in respect of the supreme law of the land, and that is the federal constitution. The role of the court was to give effect to the provisions of the articles in the constitution, and not to open the constitution up to destructive analysis.

As reported, Justice Augustine Paul inter alia said: ‘The power to deal with contempt, which is not provided in the Standing Orders of the legislative assembly, is not something that the speaker can take cognisance of as it requires a law to that effect'.

Does this judge not understand the fact that the constitution was drafted after taking into account our nation's political culture which is rooted in the Malay Rulers indigenous conception of the law and the advent of colonialism of Malaya and the colonial masters imposition of their executive authority of indirect rule from London?

So that is why for some fifty two years or more the government had found no need whatsoever to make any changes to Article 72 (1) of the federal constitution, which states: ‘The validity of any proceedings in the legislative assembly of any state shall not be questioned in any court'.

All that the federal court had to do was to give effect to the provisions of Article 72(1) of the federal constitution. They only had to give it a plain and ordinary meaning. They do not have the power to fill in the gaps, as there were none.

The operative words are ‘any proceedings' and ‘shall not be questioned'.

Why did Paul waste his time to write some 64 pages, which is not of divine prescience or perfect clarity but in fact is of a great embarrassment to the judicial fraternity and the legal profession.

Has the federal court decided that justice is something that is good for some people who are politically correct and not quite good enough for the rest who are not ‘politically correct'?

Maybe the federal court judges have not heard what Woodrow Wilson said: ‘Unless justice be done to others, it will not be done to us.'

As a concluding point, the federal court should take stock of what Joseph Addison said: ‘Justice discards party, friendship, kindred and is always, therefore, represented as blind'.

We, as the people, have now to accept the fact that we cannot accept a shirt which is offered to us by a naked man.