COMMENT ‘Due process’ is a legal term presently in the news - and not just because of the Anwar Ibrahim sodomy appeal at the Federal Court where adherence to it or deviations from it were highlighted in the arguments the defence and prosecution have adduced.

It is a significant term within the concept of the rule of law for without adherence to it, the verdict or judgment arrived at the end of a trial would be flawed.    

Thus a red flag went up when a counsel in the sodomy appeal argued that evidence illegally obtained was admissible if it furnished proof for a correct finding.

This kind of evidence collection does not accord with the due process that is a vital prop for the rule of law; it subverts the law rather than upholds it.

This significant prop of the law can be transposed beneficently to the process of coalition politics, especially the one currently in the news about how to cope with dissensions within Pakatan Rakyat.

The opposition coalition handled this matter rather abjectly in the crisis that ignited from PKR’s attempt to replace their menteri besar for Selangor, Khalid Ibrahim.

What may be called the due process of coalition politics was not adhered to in the imbroglio such that the coalition was made to look amateurish and, what was worse, presumptuous in its pretension as a government-in-waiting.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng last weekend drew attention to this non-adherence by a Pakatan partner to the due process of coalition politics.

In the main, this non-adherence referred to the absence of the principal leader of a component party at presidential council meetings of Pakatan and the subsequent public airing of dissent by the principal from decisions arrived at the meetings held in his abstention.

Guan Eng’s point is well-taken. Non-attendance does not free the principal from collective responsibility for the decision taken in the course of a meeting.

The coalition would not be viable if such freedom is allowed, argued Guan Eng.

Although Guan Eng did not specify who he was referring to, it was clear the miscreant being fingered was PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang.

Hadi had publicly disagreed with the choice of PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as the replacement for Khalid, a decision arrived at a Pakatan presidential council meeting at which Hadi was not present.

Matters were rendered more complicated when it was argued by some quarters in PAS, and acquiesced in by Hadi, that the grounds for Khalid’s removal were not convincing in the first place.

This made public dissent over Wan Azizah as replacement for Khalid even messier still than would have been the case if the grounds for Khalid’s removal had appeared compelling.

This was where another departure from the due process of coalition politics occurred - before the replacement for Khalid was discussed, the reasons for Khalid’s removal were not adequately debated and agreed on.

Disarray laid bare

Inevitably, the disarray in Pakatan consequent from two departures from the due process of coalition politics was laid bare for all to see.

The two departures were, one, inadequate ventilation and acceptance of a key leader-replacement in a Pakatan-ruled state and, two, recourse to public disagreement by a principal who was absent at a meeting when a critical decision was made.

No coalition is viable if it allows these departures from the due process of coalition politics to rend its fabric.

Hence Guan Eng’s indirect criticism of Hadi’s deportment is valid.

But, what if Hadi had attended the presidential council meetings and raised his objections to the nomination of Wan Azizah as replacement for Khalid Ibrahim and had been outvoted?

Would he have been justified in voicing public dissent over the nomination after he had had been outvoted?

Now that the DAP sec-gen has raised the matter of the deportment of a principal leader of a Pakatan component, perhaps the time has come to specify the rules of due process of coalition politics.

True, Pakatan is a work in progress which means that gestation cannot be forced and matters cannot be rushed to premature conclusions.

But, as the Chinese saying goes, a crisis presents both peril and opportunity.

The crisis that broke out from PKR’s attempt earlier this year to replace Khalid as Selangor menteri besar showed opposition coalition to be a coalition of expedience rather than principle.

But the opposition coalition did not unravel and disintegrate; it maintained a façade of unity that owed much to an awareness that as separate entities each would amount to much less than the, albeit, shaky sum of its parts.

There is little more than three years to the next general election, enough time in which to attach more rules to the due process of coalition politics.

Guan Eng’s criticisms should be the starting point for that consultative and collaborative process.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.