'Even God gave Adam right to defence'

By Teoh El Sen

PETALING JAYA: Even God gave Adam a chance to defend himself before he was punished, said Subang MP R Sivarasa, one of the four opposition lawmakers suspended for six months from Parliament.

The others suspended were Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, PKR deputy president Azmin Ali and DAP chairman Karpal Singh.

Speaking at a joint press conference here today, Sivarasa said: "Karpal mentioned that the right to be heard is enshrined in the Islamic jurisprudence. Even God himself did not pass sentence before Adam was called for defence."

However, the PKR leader lamented that these basic antiquated principles were “brushed aside by the brute majority” of Barisan Nasional in Parliament, with its MPs voting against a hearing or debating the suspensions.

Sivarasa also denied that Anwar had deliberately misled Parliament with regards to his One Israel jibe.

In order to do so, the Subang MP said, Anwar would need to state something that he knew was false, but in this case the latter had all the sufficient factual evidence.

"This is a major threat to freedom of speech in Parliament. BN has damaged the integrity and dignity of Parliament and threatened the basic freedom of speech of an MP, without which, we cannot do our jobs," he added.

Letters from Apco

Elaborating on the minority report written by himself and Karpal, Sivarasa said the report detailed their views as minority members of the Rights and Privileges Committee on what had happened.

"We described the flagrant breach of natural justice and rule of law... from how the Speaker represented to the House in April saying there will be a proper inquiry, calling of witnesses and Anwar himself (to state his case)... and the subsequent complete about-turn on Dec 3," he said.

The minority report was written by Karpal and Sivarasa after they pulled out from the committee in protest of its decision to proceed with Anwar's case without calling any witnesses.

"Why (the about turn)? Oh, there was this letter by Apco (Worldwide) and it is the power of Apco to make the committee do a 180 degree about-turn," said Sivarasa.

Anwar had alleged that the government hired the services of international public relations firm Apco and that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's 1Malaysia campaign was purportedly a rehash of the firm's earlier work with former Israeli premier Ehud Barak's One Israel slogan.

Meanwhile, Sivarasa claimed that the letters from Apco itself contained false statements, including its initial denial of any ties with Isreal, which was retracted after the "truth" was exposed.

Sivarasa said that the motion to suspend the three other MPs for breaching Standing Order 85 was also completely false.

"Because it distorts what the order says. It says the member of the committee or any other person cannot publish any evidence taken before the committee. But now the question of evidence taken does not arise because we have not even started... or called any witnesses yet.

"The wording says 'publish' but they are trying to say that we breached the order by merely mentioning the letter from Apco. This is the power of Apco, their letters are top secret," he said.

Sivarasa also described his, Azmin and Karpal's suspension as "petty minded acts of reprisal to punish" them for persistently highlighting the "gross unfairness" in the committee's proceedings.

FMT