I have read two of your reports on the Federal Court decision on the 'ISA 6' and found them extremely instructive especially the comments by Lim Kit Siang and several others in your second report

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From these, one has the impression that the Federal Court decision raises very important issues of judicial accountability to principles of the rule of law in the country.

Unfortunately, politicians are taking the case to town as vindicating the country's record of judicial independence.

I found Suhakam chairperson Abu Talib Othman's response on the matter, frankly disturbing. His comment that the decision should be "a lesson to the authorities" has perhaps reminded him of the time he was attorney-general and legal advisor to the government. Is Abu Talib in fact saying that police should be more careful when detaining people under the ISA so as not to allow any loophole whereby their actions to detain citizens without a trial be better secured?

I would think that as the Human Rights Commission chief Abu Talib should have come out with a clear statement on the side of the right of citizens not to be arbitrarily detained under some false excuse of national security. He should have called for a repeal of the ISA as used by the government to detain dissidents and political opponents as in the case of the 'ISA 6'.

Instead Abu Talib prefers to do the balancing act tipping in favour of the government action. I suppose he is reminiscing his days as the government's top dog legal advisor when ISA court cases do nothing but to affirm the government's omnipotence in ISA.