Karpal, Letter Of The Law or Spirit Of The Law?

Hantu Laut

Find fault with the judge if you can't find fault with the judgement.It's a trend among opposition leaders to ridicule judges when they couldn't find flaw in the judgement.

Anwar did it many times, asking judges to be removed from his case accusing them of being bias, his tactic to delay the trial.His Sodomy II trail ended with him off the hook more out of incompetent evidence provided the police rather than anything else.The prosecution appealed the case.

In his sedition case Karpal the nutty as a fruitcake lawyer couldn't find any flaw in the Court Of Appeal's judgement decided to insult one of the three judges, Datuk Clement Skinner for not being fluent in Malay and implied he couldn't have understood the written judgement in Malay because of his poor understanding of the language.It's obvious he is scrapping the bottom of the barrel.There were two Malay judges on the panel,there must have been discourse among the three judges before they reach a consensus.The written judgement is just academic.

Here, he politicised punishment by the court for contempt of a crazy imam who threw his shoes at the judges because he was not happy with the judgement.He was sentenced to a year imprisonment which Karpal and a few other half-past six lawyers say too excessive.If the imam were an UMNO man they would say the opposite, too lenient.

Throwing shoes at people is the biggest insult in any culture and are not taken very lightly in the Malay culture.

This ex-imam and ex-Mat Rempit is lucky, if I were the judge I would give him one for each shoe, two years in prison and five stroke of the cane.

One year is not enough deterrent, particularly, for 'kurang ajar' imam.

Contempt Of Court ?

Hantu Laut

On 17 Sept the Federal Court upheld a decision by the High Court in Kuantan which on 25 May 2007 ordered the Government of Pahang to pay Seruan Gemilang Makmur Sdn.Bhd the sum of RM60 million for damages for breach of contract.

The company was given the right to log 4,000 hectares of forest concession by the Pahang State Government.The government subsequently allowed a third party to enter part of the area to carry out logging activities.The company sued the government for RM60 million and was awarded damages by the High Court.The government appealled to the Federal Court but lost the case.

The Pahang Government have not paid the company in spite of court order given by the Federal Court, the highest court in the country.The company have now applied for an order of mandamus to compel the government to pay.

What should be done if leaders of government have no respect of the law and the nation's highest court? Not respecting the court order is contempt of court and the court if it so wishes can send the person concerned for custodial sentence.

There are four elements that construe contempt.These are:

existence of a lawful order.
the contemnor's knowledge of the order.
the contemnor's ability to comply.
the contemnor's failure to comply.

If the Menteri Besar of Pahang has all of the above than the court should take serious view of his action and deal with him in accordance with the letter of the law.

There may be a law against seizure of government assets which gave the company no other choice but to apply for the 'order of mandamus' to compel the Menteri Besar to pay up.

If government can enforce its claims against its citizens for breach of contract, it has no right to be more equal than others.

I hope the court will take serious view of the disrespect for the court.