malaysiandigest
Putting things into perspective, the Royal Commission of Inquiry may just be another reactive public relations response to appease the emotional amongst us, the rakyat.
Aziz Hassan
Given the environment that we have had the last week or so the decision was not totally unexpected. But for me personally even if it had to happen, I would rather that we wait for the police to complete their investigation first.
Thus the Cabinet's decision on Wednesday, especially on the need to have an inquest to determine how political aide Teoh Beong Hock died a week ago, was nothing else but premature.
If you look further into what inquests do and what is expected of them, this decision has only given rise to more questions.
Let's examine the possibilities coming out of the police investigation. What if the police find enough evidence to recommend that someone be charged in relation to Teoh's death? What will happen to the inquest then, since it is due to start soon, possibly by next week? Delay the charge to allow the inquest to take its course? Let it continue while having the trial simultaneously? That would be precedent-setting, anywhere at all in the world.
Then the Royal Commission of Inquiry (which may start its hearings somewhat later especially since its members have yet to be appointed and its terms of reference yet to be spelt out but for the announcement by Prime Minister Najib Razak) has as one of its responsibilities to ascertain if in interviewing Teoh from about 6pm Wednesday to 3.45am on Thursday the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission had denied Teoh his basic human rights.
The tricky part here is which set of rights do you apply? What if the law or the rules and regulations governing the MACC are silent on this, which is likely the case? We can then assume that despite the hours spent, the commission may not have gone against any law after all.
How then do you twist and turn to look if there was a denial of rights? My honest to goodness opinion is that this part of the work expected from the RCI had not been well thought out.
I have also checked with a lawyer who used to serve for several years in the magistrate and sessions courts and used to preside over an inquest. His understanding too is that you only have an inquest when you cannot at the outset determine the cause of death or the circumstances leading to the fatality.
What the inquest hopes to do primarily is to determine if foul play was involved and if anyone could be charged. What cannot be disputed is that the basis of having an inquest is still the report from the police, which in this case has not been prepared nor submitted.
Which simply means that the Cabinet has preempted the outcome of the investigation, and the conclusion of the work normally carried out by the police.
One inquest of much prominence was the one in the early 80s following the plane crash involving former minister Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie. I think the magistrate in Benting gave an open verdict, leaving the parties which felt aggrieved by the incident a choice of whether to go to court. No one did.
There's one other thing that is glaringly clear from the Cabinet decisions and that is of the legal eagles not questioning the practicality of having the inquest. Senior lawyer Karpal Singh suggested that the scope of the Royal Commission of Inquiry be expanded to include the cause of death but without saying outright that the inquest was of no use, at least for now. So too a statement by the Bar Council -- nothing that suggested that a decision on whether or not to have the inquest should wait for the outcome of the police investigation.
My feeling is that this is again about politics clouding the issue. The popular view is anything that may eventually put the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission in its proper place, and not necessarily what is right from the legal perspective.
There is also another trend or culture that keeps surfacing in this country whenever something of this magnitude happens. By and large the Malays are usually subdued in their reactions, even when the person deemed to have been victimised is a Malay. But I guess that's the culture of the Malays and influenced to a large degree by their Islamic upbringing.
The issue of Teoh's death is highly emotive undeniably but sadly not many people, including prominent names, have shown that they are calm and level-headed above their shoulders. Everyone wants to gain mileage, usually political.
Putting things into perspective, the Royal Commission of Inquiry may just be another reactive public relations response to appease the emotional amongst us, the rakyat.Aziz Hassan
Given the environment that we have had the last week or so the decision was not totally unexpected. But for me personally even if it had to happen, I would rather that we wait for the police to complete their investigation first.
Thus the Cabinet's decision on Wednesday, especially on the need to have an inquest to determine how political aide Teoh Beong Hock died a week ago, was nothing else but premature.
If you look further into what inquests do and what is expected of them, this decision has only given rise to more questions.
Let's examine the possibilities coming out of the police investigation. What if the police find enough evidence to recommend that someone be charged in relation to Teoh's death? What will happen to the inquest then, since it is due to start soon, possibly by next week? Delay the charge to allow the inquest to take its course? Let it continue while having the trial simultaneously? That would be precedent-setting, anywhere at all in the world.
Then the Royal Commission of Inquiry (which may start its hearings somewhat later especially since its members have yet to be appointed and its terms of reference yet to be spelt out but for the announcement by Prime Minister Najib Razak) has as one of its responsibilities to ascertain if in interviewing Teoh from about 6pm Wednesday to 3.45am on Thursday the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission had denied Teoh his basic human rights.
The tricky part here is which set of rights do you apply? What if the law or the rules and regulations governing the MACC are silent on this, which is likely the case? We can then assume that despite the hours spent, the commission may not have gone against any law after all.
How then do you twist and turn to look if there was a denial of rights? My honest to goodness opinion is that this part of the work expected from the RCI had not been well thought out.
I have also checked with a lawyer who used to serve for several years in the magistrate and sessions courts and used to preside over an inquest. His understanding too is that you only have an inquest when you cannot at the outset determine the cause of death or the circumstances leading to the fatality.
What the inquest hopes to do primarily is to determine if foul play was involved and if anyone could be charged. What cannot be disputed is that the basis of having an inquest is still the report from the police, which in this case has not been prepared nor submitted.
Which simply means that the Cabinet has preempted the outcome of the investigation, and the conclusion of the work normally carried out by the police.
One inquest of much prominence was the one in the early 80s following the plane crash involving former minister Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie. I think the magistrate in Benting gave an open verdict, leaving the parties which felt aggrieved by the incident a choice of whether to go to court. No one did.
There's one other thing that is glaringly clear from the Cabinet decisions and that is of the legal eagles not questioning the practicality of having the inquest. Senior lawyer Karpal Singh suggested that the scope of the Royal Commission of Inquiry be expanded to include the cause of death but without saying outright that the inquest was of no use, at least for now. So too a statement by the Bar Council -- nothing that suggested that a decision on whether or not to have the inquest should wait for the outcome of the police investigation.
My feeling is that this is again about politics clouding the issue. The popular view is anything that may eventually put the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission in its proper place, and not necessarily what is right from the legal perspective.
There is also another trend or culture that keeps surfacing in this country whenever something of this magnitude happens. By and large the Malays are usually subdued in their reactions, even when the person deemed to have been victimised is a Malay. But I guess that's the culture of the Malays and influenced to a large degree by their Islamic upbringing.
The issue of Teoh's death is highly emotive undeniably but sadly not many people, including prominent names, have shown that they are calm and level-headed above their shoulders. Everyone wants to gain mileage, usually political.
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