The director tampered with the marks, the Attorney-General, who heads the LPQB, said. The Board could not now but distance itself from him. Were the results of previous years then as tainted? It raised another disturbing question: the integrity of the Board itself.

The corruption did not stop there. It went all the way up the chain to the director's office. Money and sex was the currency; female, especially Malay, students promised higher ranking in return for sex. The LPQB is embarrassed that it got caught out, not that the CLP examination is nullified. It has not come up with any explanation for what happened, the high ranking officials headed by the Attorney-General herself, in other societies proof of integrity, disappear into the woodwork.

The Attorney-General, Datin Ainum Mohamed Said, first went on leave for one-month, which later became two. There is nothing unusual about it, except that it was not announced. When officials go on leave without any announcement for as long as this, Bolehland's favourite news agency, Rumour, fills in the silence of the official media. At first sight, when I first heard of it last night, after a friend of her's called me, I did not know about the leave or the rumour that she was under investigation.

Tan Sri Vincent personally also claims that Ganesh had defamed him by implying in a query to the Norwegian Labor Party, that he had interefered with the independence of the judiciary to such an extent that no one challenging him in a Malaysian court could expect to win. The pictures at www.malaysia.net/special, and the story I wrote to go with the pictures, are part of Vincent's statement of claim. (These refer to photos of the former Chief Justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, and Dato' V.K. Lingam, on holidays with their families in New Zealand; and of Tan Sri Vincent, Dato' Lingam, the former Attorney-General and now federal court judge, Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah and their wives in Rome.)

The de facto law minister, Dato' Rais Yatim, says it is all for the good that the charges are withdrawn. If it was, why did the Attorney-General's Chambers proceed with the charges in the first place. It need not have. Why? When Mr Justice Augustine Paul, the judge in his first trial, was made the presiding judge, it destroyed any pretense of fair mindedness in the public eye. Now that the charges are withdrawn, Dato' Seri Anwar takes the high moral ground yet again to insist he cannot now rebut the charges against him. When the deputy prime minsiter, Dato' Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, said why it was good the charges were dropped, and Dato' Rais that fifteen years in prison was enough and more time would be counterproductive, it reflects the pressures the government faces from the ground. The long and short of it is the government cannot allow him to make a fool of itself, as it undoubtedly would, the third time around. Mr Justice Ariffin Jaka, who presided over the second trial, has yet to deliver his grounds of judgement when he sentenced him to nine years in jail for sodomy; without that Dato' Seri Anwar cannot appeal against sentence and conviction. No one in governments this amounts to a miscarriage of justice, but the Malay ground increasingly believes so.

If Umno wants another reason for its problems, it is the curious decision to bring to court the five outstanding charges against Anwar this week. The Attorney-General's chambers is coy if the charges would be withdrawn or proceeded with. To do so within two months of the Umno general assembly is madness.

The average wealth of the Malaysian cabinet minister is acquired in office; how that is done without being corrupt is one reason why they cannot be caught. Ask the Anti-Corruption Agency. Almost all cabinet ministers have been investigated for acquiring wealth beyond their means, but the Attorney-Geneal's Chambers, which must prosecute would not. Besides the odd office boy, clerk, postman, policeman, no one is officially corrupt, in the eyes of the Attorney-General.

He was allowed bail at express instructions of a senior officer in the Attorney-General's Chambers. The Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Norian Mai, in apportioning blame, did not explain why the police did not object.

1:14pm, Mon: The de facto law minister, Dr Rais Yatim, is worried about Malaysia's trend to high defamation damages. He calls for studies to be done by the Attorney-General's Chambers, the judiciary and the Bar with a view to get the cabinet to cap it.

I believed once Dato' Seri Anwar could have got the medical attention he needed here. Not any more. His medical treatment is now clouded within a political agenda, one in which he could not expect decent treatment. The nitpicking that goes on reduces the government's position to utmost harrassment. Yes, the man is convicted on corruption and sodomy charges. Yes, he would spend the next 15 years in jail. Yes, he should serve his sentences. But how his trials were conducted suggest a deliberate attempt to convict, as happened. The Attorney-General's Chambers did not blink when it revised the charge sheet as its prosecution fumbled. None of his appeals are over. Common decency would demand a more humane treatment, if only because the man three years was deputy prime minister. But everyone now wants to stick a knife into him. UMNO is frightened he would be let out to cause nightmares; even more so if he remains in prison.

Malaysian newspapers do not report these as it should, but the KeADILan demonstrations against the government have spread to outside Selangor and the Federal Territory. The Kulim gathering last week of 500 in the magistrate's court is but a taste of what is to come. On Saturday, four water cannons had to be brought in to control a gathering band of supporters outside the Dang Wangi police station to lodge a report against the former Attorney-general and now a federal court judge, Mohtar Abdullah. We are told that a crowd of 1,000 were on hand, but the figure was understated.

That did not stop Dato' Lingam. According to an affidvait filed in another defamation action, he helpfully wrote part or all of the judgement in that case. He is such a powerful figure that he goes on holidays with the now retired chief justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, and the former Attorney-General and now federal court judge, Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah.

The Attorney-General, Datin Ainum Mohamed Saad, exuded that aplenty, though her choice of words suggests otherwise: Her chambers would help the judiciary "for the sake of public well-being". The public seeks justice not for its well-being, but one it expects in a civilised country. It is not a benefit to be dispensed as occasion demands. But she, in the A.-G's Chambers, exudes the same fresh air as Tan Sri Dzaiddin in the courts.

Instead, he went out of his way to have him charged with sodomy and corruption. With all the investigatives agencies at his comment, the Prime Minister could not find a more serious charge he could pin on his former deputy than what made the Attorney-General's chambers and the judiciary looked stupid as he went on to jail.

Frankly, the Prime Minister contributes to the mess the judiciary is in. He lied, at the time, when he said he knew not who would succeed Tun Eusoff. A few hours later, his office announced it. He would have preferred the Attorney-general, who would merrily have gone to ensure an imperfect judiciary. He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost could not be acquitted for what would have forced the Prime Minister out of office. The judiciary under Tun Eusoff helped in this gross injustice. It had nothing to do with imperfect judges or judicial problems.

Dzaiddin says the press can criticise the judiciary "within limits". He admits there has to be a "cleaning-up". No one talks about the past, but how he says hw would go about it says it all: restoring the judiciary's image, putting the judicial house in order, improve the functioning of justice. Indeed, no judicial appointment has been as welcome as his. He was not the Prime Minister's choice, who would have preferred the outgoing Attorney-General, Mohtar Abdullah, a former High Court judge.

The new Attorney-General, Datin Ainum Mohd Saaid, should not have thanked the government and the Prime Minister for her appointment. She is appointed, one hopes, for her competence. By thanking both, she tells the world the she is beholden to them for her appointment. She does not have to parrot to the world she would, as the New Straits Times says, "do her best to discharge her duties in the interest of justice and fairness". Tan Sri Mohtar, when he took office, said so too. And he is asked to leave without by your leave. Her competence and her independence is not in doubt. She resigned from the Securities Commission than soften a tough report she did which angered the chairman. She was in limbo, as director of a public listed company, for five years before he appointment.

With all this hanging over his head -- and what I have mentioned is but a partial list -- he cannot afford time in an Australian court to explain how came by his empire, why he chose defamation to burnish his reputation, and answer questions that could not be asked of him in Malaysia court. He would no doubt also have to explain his role in the retiring chief justice, Tun Eusoff Chin's unusual holiday arrangements with his counsel, and of his holiday in Italy with his lawyer and the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah. What he has to say would be reported as widely here as his own cases here were. Not many in high office relishes what he could be compelled to answer. He could not have appeared in an Australian court and survive politically in Malaysia.

There is more to Datin Ainum Mohd Saaid, the Attorney-general-to-be, than we are told. Though once parliamentary draftsman, the third highest rank in the judicial and legal service, she is no more in service. When with the Securities Commission as legal officer, she resigned at 24-hours notice when her integrity was questioned over a report she had prepared, was unemployed for a while before she worked for a listed company before she was re-engaged as the deputy chief executive of the Securities Commission. She was parliamentary draftsman before she moved to the Securities Commission. She is, according to a senior officer in the Securities Commission, "tough and straight", a good administrator, and would stand her ground but would give way to more persuasive arguments. She is uninvolved in the controversies which damages the judiciary and legal services' integrity.

A month after the Conference of Rulers announced the new chief justice, Tan Sri Dzaiddin Abdullah, the Prime Minister says he knows nothing about it. But he was present at the Conference, meets the Yang Dipertuan Agung every week, did not object when the Keeper of the Ruler's Seal announced it to the world. Even if he was absent, the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, would have, and told him what transpired. At least, he should. Besides, the Conference issued a press statement about its appointment, one his office would surely have known about. More than that, the de facto law minister, Rais Yatim, was enthusiastic at it. Yet, he tells reporters, he is not informed. So, why is he now denying what he cannot deny? Is he now telling the world that he since he does not know about it, Tan Sri Dzaiddin will hold office without his knowing of the appointment and therefore would be impartial or independent? Or does he sulk that the Conference did not appoint whom he would have preferred instead: the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah?

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