your say 'But we are in Malaysia, where foreigners get ‘C4ed' and where 14-year-old children get shot in the back of the head by police in self-defence.'

 

 

Aussie expert: I'm hamstrung without documents

Kgen: If they want to convict Anwar Ibrahim by means of a kangaroo court then so be it, but Umno leaders should not insult our intelligence later by saying that Anwar was given a proper trial and he had so many lawyers to defend him. They, especially Prime Minister Najib Razak, should also not ask us to ‘accept the decision of the court' as if we are gullible fools.

Cala: Malaysia cannot expect to achieve the status of a high-income nation by not doing anything. Besides having to implement good economic policies, restoring all forms of institutions such as the judiciary is warranted.

Who else would dare to invest in a nation whose law is not transparent and impartial? If the law can be twisted by the persons who are accessible to the powerful, where is fairness and justice? How would business flourish? Definitely then, transaction costs between transacting parties would escalate.

In short hence, if Najib is serious about his 1Malaysia/NEM, he simply has to fix the decimated judiciary system in this country, or he can kiss his dream goodbye. Read this for empirical evidence on 'Economic growth and judiciary independence: Cross-country evidence using a new set of indicators' (Feld and Voigt, 2003).

Inspektor Klueso: Any independent court would have thrown the case out by now. Unwashed anus for two days, DNA of two males found in specimen, evasive plaintiff, compromised evidence, conjured evidence that is so low grade it can only be prepared by primary school kids, plaintiff meeting with ‘Pinky' beforehand, plaintiff meeting with previous police fixer before lodging complaint, consensual versus non-consensual, bad back status of defendant and therefore inability to ‘mount' without consent, witnesses smiling and appearing with defendant a day after alleged incident, no clinical sign of injury on anus (therefore Anwar's manhood has to be toothpick-like in calibre), etc, etc, etc...

But then we are in Malaysia, where witnesses mysteriously throw themselves out of high floors, where foreigners get ‘C4ed' and no one with motive gets convicted, where 14-year-old children get shot in the back of the head by police in self-defence.

Paul Warren: I know of a criminal charge against a company thrown out because the defence lawyer at the start of the proceedings, when after four previous postponements and all the prosecution witnesses were present, highlighted to the magistrate that the prosecution had not handed over under Section 51 of the Criminal Procedure Code the necessary documents and the evidence to the defence up to that point.

The prosecutor looked stunned and apologised to the magistrate. The magistrate, out of sheer frustration I suppose, after giving the prosecutor a dressing down, discharged the case which did not amount to a dismissal - whatever that meant. But here, in Anwar's case, there seems to be a total disregard for the law.

Confused: Is there a reason why Section 51 of the Criminal Procedure Code was amended? It is really ridiculous that the defendant needs to file an application for all documentary evidence during the trial. You mean anyone in this country can be charged without knowing exactly what he has done wrong? Where is the justice or the human rights that we have been harping so much about?

Bobby Chang: How can you charge a person without disclosing all the necessary documents and 'evidence' to be scrutinised? Even not an Anwar's supporter, I begin to notice basically the government wants to pin this man down through whatever means, like what they did a decade ago.

Yum: The government is losing the plot here. If it thinks it has an airtight case against Anwar, all this pussy-footing about with the release of documents hints of a witch-hunt or of flimsy ‘evidence'.

Noraini Yousoff: This trial is not only succeeding in making Anwar a victim, the precedents set here changes the law as such, and all Malaysians become victim. This is a clear indication that this government and its courts can now succeed in selective prosecution and persecution of individuals.

Satinah Osman: The entire episode of Anwar and his semen and penetration and Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan not washing his anus for days does not matter in so far as the public and its future generations are concerned. What matters to us is that the judiciary is making BN/Umno judgments, which will have far reaching effects on the nation.

Ichigo: Like Sodomy I, Sodomy II shows that the institutions meant to protect the liberty and justice of the country fail us. Once again, the very principles our country was founded upon is sodomised/rape in full view of the public.

Shall we not put aside our differences and unite to make it known that we cannot tolerate this anymore, when the time comes please do not be distracted and enticed by some little goodies.

Swipenter: Our judiciary is also on trial besides Anwar in this shameful trial. Instead of expediting the case fast and smoothly, we see all kinds of obstacles thrown in the path of the defendant by our courts. It borders on naked perversion of justice.

Lonestar: KY jelly is ever so water soluble. It washes off ever so easily. Saiful said he did not bathe for more than 48 hours after the non-consensual act. Imagine KY being there in the perianal region after more than 48 hours. Is this Saiful telling us that apart from not taking baths in those 48 hours, he has also dispensed with the wearing of underwears and pants?

Nazirull Safry Paijo: A farce of this magnitude are not usually well-documented. It looks like there is going to be another long lull in the trial for them to 'produce' the items requested - or to work around it for them not to do so.

Md Imraz Muhammed Ikhbal: In a land consumed by corruption and where enforcement is subservient to the political agenda of the ruling elites, ‘law' is nothing more than a commodity sold to the highest bidder.

Sentinel: Malaysians and people from around the world already know the outcome - no way are they going to give those documents to Anwar's lawyers. The BN government doesn't care about the Criminal Procedure Code and neither do they care about the law. They are the law.

 

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