Malaysiakini : In the minds of many who yearned, campaigned, and succeeded to expose
an unholy nexus between certain members of the Bar and the Bench, it is
an era that should never be repeated – however hard the times are.The
bad old ways of shopping for judges and incidents of judges holidaying
with lawyers have not emerged after that unbridled period except for
occasional shades emerging, only for officialdom to white-wash them.
Last
week, another ugly side of the court – nothing to do with the court of
judges, but nevertheless supplementary to the administration of justice.
On
Thursday (April 20), the liberty of six men sanctioned by the court
found themselves incarcerated in remand in prison and will remain there
until Tuesday morning when the system trickles to activity.
It was no fault of theirs. Someone decided that the bail counter at the Jalan Duta Court Complex will close just before 3pm despite a notice stating that office hours were until 4.30pm.
“The counter staff said that it was closed pursuant to a directive from the Kuala Lumpur court management,” Free Malaysia Today quoted the men’s lawyer Alvin Tan as saying.
Minister stating the obvious
The
response, although not immediate, was telling indeed – an example of
how the system works and a reflection of what governance is not all
about.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and
Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said said the ministry’s legal
affairs division was instructed to probe the matter.
If the
allegations are proven to be true, Azalina said the matter must be
reviewed and corrected to ensure administrative errors are not repeated.
But,
as if to cushion the blow, she stated the obvious. The same news portal
quoted her as saying: “The right to bail is a fundamental and
constitutional human right that the government respects without
question.
“Any act, including administrative issues, that interfere with this right is viewed as flouting this cardinal principle.”
The key phrases are “reviewed and corrected” and “not repeated”.
Isn’t there something called reprimand and deterrence? Or was the
announcement of the long holiday the antecedent to the events of
Thursday afternoon?
Members of the administration seem to be a law
unto themselves, They can do wrong and whatever they do must be deemed
correct by the lesser mortal.
Just like local councils that seem
to think their job is to punish the very people they are paid to
represent. The irony is that they use the money from one group of people
to fight another.
If a timetable or operating hours had been made
public, an abrupt diversion or amendment without advance notice smacks
of arrogance.
The Little Napoleons who occupy and walk the
corridors of power in local authorities and in some licencing bodies are
spreading their unwanted and unwelcome flair.
Unfortunately, this has reached the doors of the judiciary where one should be able to turn to when everything else fails.
