21 March 2019
H.E. Halimah Yacob
President of the Republic of Singapore
c/o H.E. Vanu Gopala Menon
High Commissioner of the Republic of Singapore to Malaysia
209 Jalan Tun Razak
50400 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Your Excellency,
Appeal for Clemency for Michael Anak Garing
I am writing in my capacity as the President of the Malaysian Bar, an independent Bar whose aim is to uphold the rule of law and the cause of justice, and protect the interest of the legal profession as well as that of the public. Our organisation represents the approximately 19,000 lawyers who are practising in Peninsular Malaysia.
We understand from various news reports that the prison authorities in Singapore will hang to death 30–year–old Malaysian Michael Anak Garing tomorrow, 22 March 2019, who was convicted of murder in 2015.
We have consistently held the view that every individual has an inherent right to life. The right to life is absolute, universal and inalienable, and must be held inviolate, regardless of the crime that may have been committed.
We sincerely implore Your Excellency to exercise Your Excellency’s discretion with respect to the power of pardon, to commute the death sentence to one of imprisonment, and to stop the execution once and for all.
This is not, I wish to clarify, a questioning of the system of justice in Singapore. Neither is this a questioning of the sovereignty of the nation of Singapore or the jurisdiction of the courts of Singapore.
This is an appeal for the grant of mercy. We ask Your Excellency to take into account that the death penalty is an irreversible punishment.
We recall the immortal words of the late Justice Ishmael Mohamed, the former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa:
Death is different. The dignity of all of us, in a caring civilisation, must not be compromised by the act of repeating, albeit for a wholly different objective, what we find to be so repugnant in the conduct of the offender in the first place.
We thank Your Excellency for considering this call for clemency.
Yours sincerely,
Dato’ Abdul Fareed Abdul Gafoor
President
Malaysian Bar