The state of the judiciary in Malaysia is in shambles if not already reaching the lowest depths in this Bolehland.     

Forget Anwar's case. Let's look at the recent Court of Appeal decision in refusing Klang MP Charles Santiago's judicial review application to disclose the audit report and the 2004 Water Concession agreement signed between the Selangor government, federal government and Syabas.

Politely, I would say the decision is most regrettable but really who am I to kid? The decision is an affront to my rights as a Malaysian and I am pissed.

Water is an essential element in our life. Even a beggar that reaches our door should at least be given a glass of water. But Malaysians today are no better than that beggar for we are not even allowed to know why our water cost so much?

Over in Johor, the state privatised water firm, Syarikat Air Johor has just raised its water tariff up to 60 percent since November 2010, but if any brave souls in Johor harboured any doubts or wanted to challenge the government for a peep into the water concession agreement, then all those hopes are surely out of the window now after this Court of Appeal decision.

By depriving Malaysians of our right to crucial and important information that we are entitled to, the federal government, by making the appeal to the original court ruling, and the judge, in his ruling on Santiago’s application, are essentially sending out a message that we are living in a ‘need to know basis' society and this political message has now just received a judicial seal to squash all our rights.

Malaysians must realise that judges create law and law creates precedent. Just as in the haste to ‘legitimises' the Perak fiasco, bad precedent means that individual rights have been violated.

If today we are not allowed to know about our water concession agreement, similarly we are also not allowed to know our PLUS-highway concessions agreement and tomorrow who is to say this veil of secrecy would not spread to cover other information that we are entitled to?

The casual manner in which the federal government declares any documents which is politically adverse to their interest as secret and sensitive is wrong and repugnant to all right-minded persons.

In this age of greater access to information and higher political awareness, trying to suppress information is akin trying to put a lid over the ocean.

We have now witnessed the rise of people's power in the Arab world. The government should be mindful not to underestimate the sentiment of the people and should start treating us, the rakyat like a rational electorate and not some five year old kid.