Of late, we witnessed with dismay and disgust both privacy being invaded and piracy being advocated through back-door tactics.

First privacy. Should the privacy of public officers' lives, let alone private persons' lives, be invaded by outsiders who have no business to do so? Should Peeping Toms use binoculars to spy on people, be they public or private persons?

Should Peeping Toms use hidden cameras to zoom into bedrooms and snap pictures of public or private persons while the latter are in their comfort zones? Should those Peeping Toms have their eyes dug out from their sockets?

Public or private persons should be left alone while they live out their lives during their leisure hours. Their privacy should remain private. What they do in their private lives is their business alone and no nobody else's. Respect for one's privacy is a basic tenet of decency a civilised being; a barbarian will do otherwise.

Now, piracy. We hear of piracy on the high seas where ships and tankers bearing gold, silver and petroleum have been savagely attacked, their crew kidnapped, women (if any) raped and huge ransoms demanded.

In Somalian waters, this piracy is a daily occurrence and woe is the owner whose vessels sail these high seas at these unfortunate hours. Now, ship and tanker owners have resorted to high-security guards to escort their goods into safe harbours.

But, piracy is not known only on the seas but also on land. It takes a different form, but it is piracy all the same. When two or three state assembly persons in Perak were made to disappear (was private investigator Bala made to disappear or did he just disappear into thin air?) or were and they later suddenly appeared for public consumption, was it not piracy on land?

Why didn't the ‘pirates’ bring them to the state assembly? Why wasn’t the state assembly convened immediately and a vote of no-confidence carried out? Was that not the right place to conduct an orderly show of support?

If Menteri Besar Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin had lost the support of the assembly persons, then he had the choice of either stepping down or requesting the Sultan of Perak to dissolve the state assembly so that fresh state elections could be held.

The state assembly should be the one and only place where confidence in the MB could be tested - not in Putrajaya or in the palace.

As I see it, this is the only way the constitution works; and definitely not by the back-door. In football jargon during my younger days, it would be called curi ayam (stealing chickens) when a player from the opposing team is in front of the goal ahead of the full back.

As far as I know, the Perak state assembly was never called to test the case of confidence in Nizar. How are the voters to know whether the so-called ‘independents’ truly support BN? They could even remain neutral at the assembly. Nobody knows for a fact where their allegiances lie.

To say that they support BN is not the truth when no test was done in the open, that is to say in the state assembly. With due respect to the sultan, I feel he had erred in taking for granted that they supported BN.

Having an audience with him is insufficient; the vote of confidence or no-confidence should have been done in the assembly.

I also learnt that Nizar had requested the sultan to dissolve the assembly and the request was rejected. Again, with due respect to the sultan, if he felt that BN had the majority support, then he should have advised the MB to call for a vote in the right place - the state assembly - and see whether Pakatan Rakyat had lost the confidence of the majority of the assembly persons. But this was not done either!

How does democracy work then? Through piracy? Through the back-door? So, is it ‘rude’ to question the legality of the whole transfer of power? And why is it wrong to go back to the voters - the people who hold the power to choose the government? Is it not polite to take the front-door way to democracy and let the voice of the people be heard again?

Now, we are faced with two MBs; one in the official residence and another in a hotel! How are we going to break the impasse?

Finally, I believe people want to have their privacy protected and not be invaded by Peeping Toms with binoculars and hidden cameras. In the same vein, I believe people will not take kindly to piracy in a democratic nation like ours.