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©Malaysiakini (Used by permission)
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi today rejected calls for
the setting up of a royal commission of inquiry to look into the ‘Lingam video’
controversy.
Speaking to reporters at Putrajaya, Abdullah said it was important to verify the
authenticity of the video clip first.
He said the police would be probing the video clip which showed lawyer VK Lingam
brokering appointment of judges with another person.
(The other person could be identified as Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul
Halim based on the context of the conversation.)
The premier said that the police would speed up their investigation on this
matter as the video clip could cause public anger and create distrust against
the judiciary.
However, he warned that action would be taken against those who reported the
video clip if allegations made against persons involved in the clip were untrue.
Emergency motion
In a related development, PKR president and MP for Permatang Pauh Dr Wan Azizah
Wan Ismail this evening submitted a request to the Dewan Rakyat Speaker Ramli
Ngah Talib to table an emergency motion in Parliament on this latest judicial
crisis.
Wan Azizah, in her motion, wants the matter to be debated and that a royal
commission be formed to investigate the abuses of powers relating to the
appointment of judges in the country.
She wants the matter to be debated as soon as the Parliament session begins on
Oct 22.
The video clip was exposed by PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim on Wednesday.
The conversation between Lingam and Ahmad Fairuz surrounded fixing the
appointments of ‘friendly’ senior judges.
The video clip, said to have been filmed in 2002, also revealed a discussion on
Ahmad Fairuz’s appointment as the chief justice of Malaya and chief justice,
which took place in 2003.
In addition to the video clip, Anwar also revealed a short audio recording in
which his name was brought up by Lingam.
The video clip has caused a massive uproar, with numerous quarters calling on
the government to clean the ‘rot’ in the judiciary.
Since the disclosure of the video clip, many quarters have called for the
resigning of Ahmad Fairuz and the setting up of a royal commission to look into
the status of the judiciary.
Ahmad Fairuz today responded to Malaysiakini’s queries for a response by saying
that he had no comments to make. Lingam could not be reached for comment. He is
said to be abroad.
Background to the Lingam tape
The grainy eight-minute video footage was taken in 2002 at senior lawyer VK
Lingam’s Kelana Jaya house. At that time, Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah was chief
justice. Appointed in 2000, he was seen as a fresh break from his two previous
predecessors - Mohd Eusoff Chin (1994-2000) and Abdul Hamid Omar (1988-1994).
Dzaiddin was to retire in 2003, and the video showed Lingam expressing concerned
that the outgoing CJ was moving his ‘men’ into top judiciary posts. The
conversation revolved around the urgent need to get Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul
Halim, then chief judge of Malaya - the judiciary’s No 3 - appointed as Court of
Appeal president (No 2) and then chief justice (No 1). There was also the plan
to get former attorney-general Mokhtar Abdullah, who was then a Federal Court
judge, to replace Ahmad Fairuz as No 3.
To do that, Lingam had roped in tycoon Vincent Tan, a close crony of then prime
minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, and Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, a key minister in
PM’s Department. They were to talk to Mahathir on the appointment of judges.
Postscript
Ahmad Fairuz was appointeded Court of Appeal president in December 2002 - months
after the telephone conversation. Dzaiddin stepped down as CJ in 2003 and he was
replaced by Ahmad Fairuz. Mokhtar, however, could not take the No 3 post as he
was in coma after suffering from a fall in August 2002. He died in 2003. Ahmad
Fairuz' term as CJ will end in October 2007.
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