Opposition leaders mock lukewarm schizo judgment
The Federal Court ruling today that the 60-day police detention on five reformasi leaders was unlawful and yet not ordering their immediate release, provoked retorts such as "schizophrenic approach", "anti-climax", "a virtual dispense of justice" and "lukewarm".
Leaders of opposition parties disclosed their disappointment with the court's decision not to make a consequential order seeing as the detainees are no longer under police detention but detained at the Home minister's order.
Today a four-member panel of the Federal Court unanimously allowed the appeals of the reformasi activists Keadilan leaders Tian Chua, Mohd Ezam Mohamed Nor and Saari Sungib, malaysiakini columnist-cum-film maker Hishmamuddin Rais and FreeAnwar.com webmaster Raja Petra Kamaruddin to declare their detention as unlawful.
They were arrested in April last year and subsequently filed a writ of habeas corpus seeking to be relased from detention under the ISA, which allows detention without trial.
Keadilan president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said, upon hearing the news, that she had almost expected the five to be released considering that the court had ruled "the root cause for the detention to be unlawful".
"It was a virtual dispense of justice. While the court unanimously held that the police were wrong, and that the detainees were unjustly held, yet because they were later detained under a different section, they cannot be freed," she said.
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