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Enuf is enuf. Over the last few days, we Malaysians are witnessing certain powerful elements trying to capture the current discourse on the video clip scandal. The authenticity of the video clip has yet to be verified, but it has exposed the ugly machanics of how judges are appointed and promoted and how some cases may have been fixed.

From the government pulpit, we hear the rhetoric of their glorified spokesmen, as usual poor in conviction but rich in bullxxxxt. And their “bullxxxx baffles the brain”or as people say in Latin, “excrementum cerebellum vincit.” And as these spokesmen speak, little do they seem to realise that they are inflicting trauma to our national psyche.

Pursuing their purpose, they seem to hone expediency and blunt principle. They do not seem to know that, as J.R. Hicks said, “when facts are arranged in the right way, they speak for themselves; unarranged, they are as dead as mutton.”

While we Malaysians will be grateful for facts to speak for themselves, they provide us with spin and mutton.

In any event, these spokesmen seem to provide more sizzle than steak and prolong our collective agony as they try to capture the public discourse on the explosive expose so that they can control and conduct its course. Little do these spokesmen realise that “magna est veritas et praevalebut” or “the truth is great and will prevail.”

Over the years, we have heard incessant whispers of how the appointment of High Court Judges and their promotion can be highly political in nature. We lawyers usually disbelieved them.

The 8-minute-and-26-second video clip culled from a length of 14 minutes and 16 seconds was first released by former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the de facto leader and adviser of the Opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat around noon on Wednesday, Sept 19.

It initially met with the studied silence of Tun Ahmad Fairuz, the Chief Justice or top judicial official who have since issued a terse “no comment” statement on Friday and a bare denial on Sunday.

Cart Before Horse

Featured in the video clip is veteran lawyer V.K. Lingam talking to a Judge in 2002 about how he had helped secure the Judge's promotions through Tan Sri Vincent Tan, a prominent businessman, and Datuk Sri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, the then Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and current Tourism Minister.

Both were believed to be close to then Prime Minister Datuk Seri (as he then was, now Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad. In the video clip, Lingam named several top Judges and said he was also working to get Tan Sri Mokhtar Abdullah appointed Chief Judge of Malaya, the third highest judicial position in Malaysia.

Mokhtar, a former Attorney-General, was elevated directly into the Federal Court but became comatose after a fall in August 2002. He died in 2003. More than 106 hours into the expose, Lingam has so far maintained his silence.

The silence of the top Malaysian Judge was first broken the next day but carried in The Sun of Friday, Sept 21, which reported that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi said he is disappointed by the release of a video clip. "I have received a copy of the video from the police along with the transcript of the conversation. I have also viewed the recording,” he said.

Pundits noted that the Premier’s disappointment was centred on the release of the tapes, and not its veracity or otherwise.

The New Straits Times on the same day reported Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail. Tan Sri Abdul Gani as having ruled out the commission of any criminal offence in “the monologue” because “there is no clear reference that he was talking to a top judicial officer."

What was puzzling in what can be described as an apparent “damage control initiative” was the insistence of the top legal officer of the land telling the world that he was "getting further opinion on the matter … and studying other information in the video clip."

This sent the wrong signal that the cart has been put before the horse. One need not be a rocket scientist to subscribe to the view that one does not make a ruling and then seek further opinion. One seeks opinions and then makes a ruling based on them.

Plum in the Pudding

In the NST report, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz stated that the judiciary or the Attorney-General had neither briefed nor contacted him on the matter. “At the moment, I have nothing,” he said but pledged that the authorities would act when an official report was made.

Then came the plum in the pudding,  Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said the proper procedure would be for any of the parties in the video, or those who might be affected by it, to make a police report. Obviously, the Minister still believes that public confidence in the police force is intact.

From the Opposition pulpit, His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang, citing Article 125 of the Federal Constitution in his statement, called for the suspension of the Judge for unethical conduct since, he argued, the law allowed the King to appoint a tribunal, upon whose recommendation the Judge could be removed from office.

Later on the same day, at 12.19pm, Lim strongly criticised the Attorney-General’s response. Lim described it as outrageous and questioned Tan Sri Gani’s understanding of and commitment to judicial independence, integrity and accountability and his fitness to continue as Attorney-General.

At 5.01pm, Malaysiakini carried the response of Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak who said that while he had not seen the footage and had not spoken to Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim about the matter, it was important to establish the veracity of the footage "before jumping to any conclusion" because “modern day technology can also be abused and fabricated."

At 5.48pm, Aliran President P. Ramakrishnan responded to the continuing saga by calling on the Bar Council to save the judiciary.

At 6.30pm, Tun Fairuz issued a “no comment” statement from his office to Malaysiakini.

The next day, Saturday, Sept 22, saw the Malaysian Bar Council in an emergency conclave. The session decided to hold a march on Wednesday, Sept 26, to deliver a memorandum calling for the setting up of a Royal Commission “to look into the rot in the judiciary,” refer the offending lawyer to the Disciplinary Board, and holding an emergency general meeting on the matter at Kuala Lumpur’s Legend Hotel on Oct 6.

This Bar Council's decision to save the judiciary was met by Datuk Seri Nazri stating on Sunday that Tun Fairuz had contacted him to deny that he had talked to V.K. Lingam. This macabre method of denial has brought to the surface suspicions of an incestuous relationship between the Executive and the Judiciary.

According to the Doctrine of the Separation of Powers, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary are separate and independent arms of a democracy.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon, the president-designate of the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, the trend-setting partner in the National Front State Government of Penang, has called for immediate action to be taken to address concerns on the country’s judicial system.

Significantly, mum is the word from both the National Front’s trend-setter, the United Malays’ National Organisation of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and its senior partner, the Malaysian Chinese Association.

Amidst all these silence, statements and denials, what shines through is the cogency and legitimacy of the repeated calls by the Bar Council and other non-government organizations that a Judicial Appointments Commission must be set up to ensure that Judges are appointed and promoted in an accountable and transparent manner and that a review be conducted on the judicial crisis that saw the eclipse of Tun Salleh Abas as Lord President – that was what the Chief Justice was called in 1988.

Nothing less than this suffices as Malaysia is slated for the hustings in the next few months though the five-year life of the present Parliament runs into the latter part of 2009. Otherwise, Malaysians must yell the collective cry that “Enuf is Enuf.”

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