It
appears that the current Najib Administration has forgotten the bitter
lessons learnt during Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's long innings in
office when he, the frightened little man he was by default in office,
openly and shamelessly rooted for extreme coercion as his preferred
modus operandi.
It's not so much that Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak is calling
the shots in the current stand-off with the Bar Council of Malaya on the
proposed Law Academy in the wake of Bersih 3.0.
De facto Law Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz, egged on by Mahathir, appears to
be single-handedly taking on the legal profession in the country. He
must have a death-wish like Mahathir.
Why doesn't the Election Commission (EC) address, in a rational,
detached and professional manner, the issues raised by Bersih 3.0?
Instead, the Government is indulging in the politics of distraction and
disruption to camouflage the numerous complaints against the EC, the
Electoral Rolls and the electoral process. The EC cowers meanwhile
behind the Government which appears determined not to allow a free and
fair election lest it end up, after 55 years, in the dustbin of history.
Fifty-five is a good time to retire.
Desire for free and fair polls underestimated
To digress a little, Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur will turn into yet
another Tahrir Square with reminiscence of the Arab Spring if the ruling
Umno wins the 13th General Election with anything more than a simple
majority. The fault will lie squarely on the EC and Umno.
The Umno Government can only underestimate the determination of the Opposition for free and fair elections at its own peril.
Now, we are saddled with the Umno's politics of distraction and
disruption again a la Mahathir in the wake of ex-Bar Council Chief
Ambiga Sreenivasan assuming the mantle at Bersih.
The Government is under no illusions that the Opposition, which has an
eye on the 67 parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia where Indians
decide, is behind Bersih. It sees the Bar Council as having a hand in
Bersih 3.0 via Ambiga. Hence, moves for a so-called Law Academy to "rein
in the Bar Council" and at the same time intimidate Indian voters into
supporting the Government once again.
Mahathir tried, repeatedly, to do a number on practising lawyers in the
country after the sacking of the Lord President. Eventually, he had to
retreat with his tail between his legs when jurists worldwide began
scrutinizing him and he began to more than feel the heat.
History is set to repeat itself under the guise of the proposed Law Academy and for the aforesaid reasons.
Politics only for politicians?
Mahathir appears to belabour under the illusion, or perhaps deliberately, that politics is only for politicians and politicians.
Hence, he castigates the Bar Council as "having degenerated into a political party with no one to look after the profession".
Politics cannot be divorced from law.
The Constitution is more politics than law and its dry bones,
masquerading as law, are clothed by constitutional conventions and
administrative law, both of which have nothing to do with law but is all
about politics. It's the politicization of issues, like the need for
electoral reform, which eventually finds its way into constitutional
conventions and administrative law.
So, the Bar Council stands on firm ground on the legal profession and
should not be seen as behaving like a political party anymore than the
NGOs which flog a single issue where the politicians have failed.
Nazri, in a contradiction in terms vis-à-vis Mahathir, claims that the
Government-mooted Law Academy will look after the interests -- whatever
they are -- of law graduates who are not in professional practice. It's
clear that the Government wants to use the Law Academy for political
purposes and mainly to clobber the Bar Council with it.
This is the second such attempt by the Government.
The first was through an association for secular Muslim lawyers. This
divide-and-rule tactic has not worked so far because very few Muslim
lawyers abandoned the Bar Council to join the new association. Muslim
lawyers have no reason to be separate from the Bar Council just as
members of other faiths.
Tainted record
Nazri should know that Mahathir doesn't have a leg to stand on when it
comes to the legal profession, given his tainted record on the
Judiciary, and should not continue to ventilate his ignorance in public
like his political master.
The Bar Council has neither forgotten, nor forgiven him, for
single-handedly eroding the Doctrine of Separation of Powers and
reducing the Judiciary to yet another Government Department firmly under
the thumb of the executive. This was after Parliament had been reduced
to a rubber stamp and the King placed in imminent danger of losing his
head by way of a so-called Special Court. There's no precedent for this
legal Sword of Damocles anywhere in the world.
If the King has to step down, for any number of reasons, he steps down
but he can only be persuaded by the Council of Rulers to do so and not
the Government. He doesn't get dragged to Court like a commoner. But
this was what Mahathir, in his supreme ignorance, bequeathed the nation.
Whatever happened to a concept of Crown Privilege? The King can do no wrong.
Law Academy
Now, Nazri and Mahathir are leading those egging any number of
publicity-seekers to set up the Law Academy. No doubt there will be some
takers, none from the Bar Council, just as in the case of the Muslim
Lawyers Association. The Federal Government reportedly plans to fund the
Law Academy with an initial launching grant of RM 15 million.
If non-practising lawyers want to band together for some reason, they
can always do so, as provided for by Article 10 of the Federal
Constitution.
However, they should not band themselves together as a Law Academy. They
are not qualified to do so since the great majority is neither in
teaching nor are they in professional practice. No doubt they would have
forgotten whatever law they learnt in their quest for a paper
qualification. Ten out ten they would fail a simple law test.
A Law Academy is an institution of higher learning for the teaching and
development of the law via academia, with emphasis on jurisprudence, and
research on law, government and politics. Membership of the Academy is
honorary.
The right parties to set up a Law Academy would be the Bar Council of
Malaya, the Sabah Law Association and the Sarawak Advocates Association
together with the law faculties at local universities and those overseas
in Commonwealth countries.
The Federal Government has no business whatsoever pushing for a Law
Academy or whatever with half-baked characters just to politicize the
legal profession for its own ulterior motives.
No comments:
Post a Comment