I refer to the Malaysiakini report Speaker vs speaker: Sivakumar loses appeal .

There are two disturbing things in this report.

Even if the panel had discussed the case during lunch time, there were still a more than two hours long submission and reply by Chan Kok Keong – after which Juctice Malik said the appeal was dismissed unanimously, without even looking left or right.

Shouldn’t these submissions also have been discussed by the panel?

After all, the idea of hearings is to persuade the panel to change its mind and win a decision by majority. And Malik’s remarks on costs were very telling.

When Ganesan’s lawyer asked for RM20,000 costs, Malik said, ‘Can we give you more?’ meaning that he should have asked for more and he would have been given more.

Was the decision pre-ordained, I wonder?