But why is the maximum for the offence imposed as a matter of course? When it is, there is room for Corruption. One can negotiate with the policeman issuing the summons and not get it for a fee, usually half that of the maximum for the offence.

Quattrocchi, he said, was not given any explanation of the charges when he was arrested, which related vaguely to "cheating and Corruption". The deputy public prosecutor denied it, and insisted the grounds of arrest was explained, but said nothing about the specific charges. The sessions judge, Aktar Tahir, then ordered counsel and prosecution to submit on this on 22 January, ordered Quattrocchi released on bail of RM400,000 (Rs 50 lakhs), in two sureties -- his wife and another, a Malaysian, Dato' Dr Cyrus Das, a leading member of the Bar, held a watching brief for the Indian government.

That Corruption, as boradly defined, exists in the judiciary under the about-to-retire chief justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, goes without saying. How could it not when he lies about his holiday with his favourite lawyer, Dato' V.K. Lingam, and sits to ensure Dato' Lingam gets the judgement he wants. And after this is public, he writes the unanimous decision in a high profile case involving Dato' Lingam and his high profile client; yet, when he reserved judgement 28 months earlier he promised individual judgements. The fish, as the judiciary, rots first in the head. Once the rot starts in the chief justice's chambers, it is a fair bet that rot would extend to the chambers of the other judges. When the anti-Corruption agency investigates the chief justice, as Tun Eusoff has been, any self-respecting judge, if he values the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, would have resigned forthwith. But not Tun Eusoff. When a litigant totes out a litany of Corruption involving Tun Eusoff and requests him to recuse in a federal court appeal, he refuses, and the man refuses to proceed with an appeal before a coram he is uncomfortable with. Tun Eusoff has not rebutted any of the allegations, so it is safe to say that all, if not most, of what was said is true. He singlehanded reduced the judiciary to the appalling levels it is now in.

Three disparate strands struck me in Lunas in this byelection: the Malays desert UMNO in droves; the Chinese disbelieve the MCA and Gerakan such that it does not even want to listen to what they have to say; that if this was an Indian majority constituency, the National Front need not even campaign to ensure victory. The National Front decided this could be overcome with instant development plans, a form of Corruption which the Prime Minister in the recent UMNO extraordinary general meeting warned Malaysians against, threatening, hectoring, cajoling the voters, promising the earth but unable to prove why drains had been clogged for more than 20 years during which its state assemblyman did nothing. The National Front magic is all but extinct. Even how to campaign to convince the voters. It only knows how to buy votes to erase their neglect of past decades.

Lawyers, when arguing their cases, take exceptional care to refer to cases decided upon by the judge hearing them. That is insurance against one who feels slighted when other more prominent decisions question his own integrity. But is rare for a judge to blow off his handle because one of his judgements were not referred. There is the underlying understanding that this is done so as not to annoy the judge unnecessarily. After all, what he wants is victory for his client, which he does not want to jeopardise by factors other than the soundness of the case he argues. Today, he must ensure that this does not bring him in contempt in a system a new legal principle is busily fashioned: a lawyer must not put forward a case for his client which would question the integrity of the judges appearing before him. Unless he is a Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who can, and has, with impunity, accused the chief justice of Corruption and worse. The chief justice, who has acquired a particularly thick skin these days, did not see how these accusations by a petitioner that he could be biased would make him biased.

The courts convicted him of sodomy and Corruption, he is deprived of his liberty since September 1998, his appeals against a total of 15 years imprisonment wend its way through the courts, which must be successful in the present regime. When the chief justice refuses to recuse in a routine appeal despite an impassioned request from Dato' Seri Anwar on grounds of Corruption and other malfeasance of office, the political framework of the appeals are set. Freedom of expression is no better expressed than when an accused is allowed to speak on his behalf. But the courts would rather he keep quiet. His continued incarceration is political, as former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa was though sentenced to life imprisonment on criminal charges. The Prime Minister cannot discuss the state of the economy or the environment or the world in foreign climes without a question about Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. His visits overseas are rudely interrupted by pro-Anwar supporters, many of whom Malaysian, and only when overseas would he dare to speak before a Malaysian audience. His difficulties in this regard is the way his administration has dealt with his former deputy prime minister.

WHEN THE ANTI-Corruption AGENCY, toothless at the best of times except when clerks, office boys, lower ranking civil servants, decided to investigate Corruption within the Road Transport Department (JPJ) in issuing driving licences, to the accompaniment of media trumpets blaring cacophonically. It suggested a systematic web of Corruption that allowed 100,000 people to obtain driving licences when they should not have. The ACA director-general, Dato' Ahmad Zaki, breathed hellfire and brimstone, as his officers raided JPJ offices in the peninsula, with news reports suggesting a web of Corruption worse than any in the country. They had all the information, they said, and to back its threat, offered an amnesty by the end of September if those who obtained the licences surrepticiously owned up. The mountains roared, and brought forth a mouse. The transport minister, JPJ officials, rushed in to get the credit, countermanding each other with what would happen, so that no one is clear what would happen. The ACA so far has not isolated one syndicate nor arrested any of its leaders. Its focus is on the hapless motorist who renewed his licence through individuals and firms, lawfully registered, who renews licences and the like for a fee. There would be a few who deliberately bypass the law but many had their licences renewed in good faith.

Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim deflects every attempt by his former mentor, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, to destroy him politically, morally, personally. The vendetta is made all the more vicious, and Dr Mahathir all the more nervous, because every official attempt to destroy Dato' Seri Anwar backfired. The young man fights back with maximum calculated damage. He is now jailed for six years for Corruption but not more his trial exposed the utter unprofessional behaviour of the instruments of power and governance: the police, the Attorney-General's chambers, the judiciary, the civil service. The sodomy trial now under way is mired in a procedural quagmire. The strained attempt, during the recent UMNO general assembly, to damn the Anwar cronies simply because the overkill ensured it would be disbelieved. The Anwar riposte was to demand a list of the Mahathir cronies, yet to be produced. Dato' Seri Anwar last Friday forced the Prime Minister yet again into the corner he has become accustomed to. He lodged a police report accusing him, the Attorney-General, and Dato' Abdul Gani Patail, a deputy public prosecutor for failing to press charges against a senior member of the Malaysian cabinet. The Harakah, the PAS newspaper, in this morning's edition named the minister for international trade and industry, Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, as the minister involved.

Into this state of affairs, the Attorney General, Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah, puts his foot in. He deems it seditious to accuse the Attorney-General's Chambers of selective prosecution. He threatens to prosecute these miscreants under the Sedition Act or under the Penal Code for criminal defamation. Why does Tan Sri Mohtar have to threaten, when he could go right ahead and commit the fellow for trial or sue him? Would he? His retort came after the Parti Keadilan Negara youth chief, Mr Ezam Mohamed Nor, filed a police report, in which he accused Tan Sri Mohtar and DPP Dato' Abdul Ghani Patail for not taking "appropriate action" against the Minister of Finance, Tun Daim Zainuddin, for corrupt practice. Tan Sri Mohtar said on Tuesday, that "I want to deny ... (Ezam's allegations) ... that I and one of my senior officers had protected a minister from being prosecuted for Corruption practice," he said. "The allegation made by Ezam in his police report is baseless, false and slanderous. It has also gone beyond the allowed freedom of speech in the Federal Constitution," he added. Stirring words indeed, especially if he can show why he did not prosecute the several cases of ministerial Corruption brought to his attention, and decided discretion is the better part of valour. But if he choses to act against Mr Ezam, the odds are that the Malay community would be polarised yet again. He does not seem to realise this is not a legal, but a political, issue.

The man who engineered the destruction of He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost, even if it was He Who Thinks He Is Lord Of All He Surveys who led the charge, is the redoubtable Penghulu Tikus Rasputin. The then finance minister inquired too closely into affairs in which he had a seemingly tenuous vested interest; so, he was in the execution committee that decided he should be made unfit to rule an Islamic country. That failed horribly, as we now know. The man was sacked for his morals, but is convicted for Corruption. Questions are now asked about that from the UMNO faithful; so he is charged, after the fiasco of a Corruption trial, for sodomy with his wife's former driver, not in 1994, which could not be proven for lack of corroboration, but in 1992. Why did he do this, especially since the possibility of elections within the next three months cannot be ruled out? Indeed, if the Anwar Saga has not died a natural death by the time of the elections, the National Front would have an uphill struggle to retain their credibility. Or has mutiny struck the Prime Ministerial ranks that the left hand doth not know what the right hand doeth?

The defence in the Anwar Ibrahim Corruption trial, after closing its case earlier this week, filed an application on Monday, 15 March, for Mr Justice Augustine Paul to step down, or discharge himself, for not giving the ousted deputy prime minister a fair trial. Dato' Seri Anwar alleges, in his 16-page supporting affidavit, the judge prejudged issues raised by the defence, hampered his counsel from presenting his case properly, expunged evidence favourable to him, therefore denying him a fair trial. The application comes a week before submissions are due on the case, which has lasted 72 days, but evidence of evidence of sexual impropriety expunged after the prosecution fumbled in proving it and amended the charges at the close of its case.

The Anwar trial for sodomy and Corruption fused with the Nallakaruppan trial for illegal possession of bullets last week as the various ingredients are mixed so thoroughly with legal spices and chilly powder that the individual components are hardly recognisable. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's defence counsel applied to bar two deputy public prosecutors for their alleged fabrication of evidence in the Nallakarppan case. In that case, Dato' S. Nallakaruppan's counsel, Mr Manjeet Singh Dhillon, was allegedly told by both DPPs that he would consider reducing the charge if his client would "falsely implicate" Dato' Seri Anwar having sexual relations with "various" married and unmarried women. Dato' Nallakaruppan faces the death penalty if convicted. Mr Dhillon himself has stepped down as counsel to testify from the witness stand about the mala fides of the Attorney General's Chambers in the manner in which his client was charged. Mr Dhillon once worked as a police inspector and, after being called to the Bar, in the Attorney General Chambers' before resigning to practice. The Nallakaruppan case is postponed to January 25, when Jagjeet Singh took over as counsel in place of Mr Dhillon, the latter barred under the rules from continuing after taking the witness stand. He wanted time to study the case and this was granted.

However you look at it, it is fair to say that the prime minister could well not remain in office for long beyong the Apec meeting next month. His credibility is irrevocably damaged: for all the alleged offences that forced Dato' Seri Anwar out of office, he now faces some badly drafted Corruption and sodomy charges; on the Corruption charges itself, even if proven, redounds badly on the police itself. Mr Justice Augustine Paul forbade discussion of the charges in public, a slap in the face, if there was one, on the UMNO and government leaders who address the public as if the courts already had convicted Dato' Seri Anwar.

The Attorney-General, in a remarkable statement in court when a judicial commissioner was elevated a puisne judge last Saturday in Malacca, warned Malaysian judges that they either adhere strictly to the judicial code of ethics, or be penalised under the amended Anti-Corruption Act 1997. He listed six "situations" which could cause "conflicts of interest" -- when lawyers appearing before them are lawyers; judges hearing cases from their former law firms; judges hearing cases from firms with their names still on it; judges receiving free golf membership or becoming members of prestigious clubs; judges admitting to the Bar any lawyer who is also their relative; judges gambling with lawyers. Curiously, he did not mention instances when lawyers and judges go on holidays together. And he excused himself from such restrictions, insisting he has a private life and he can go on holidays with whomsoever he liked. The Bar Council chairman, Dr Cyrus Das, weighed in with the five qualities sought of a judge -- independence, integrity, competence, detachment and impartiality.

It does suggest that seemingly disparate and odd pieces of informations seem to fit into a clear pattern. I am told, for instance, that the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, did confront the man whose allies he believes orchestrated that poison pen letter about his alleged homosexuality and alleged adultery, pointing to at least three close associates of his, and the man kept looking out of the window. Another unrelated strand: the recently strengthened anti-Corruption laws gives the government the right to confiscate any wealth that the owner cannot justify. What has that to do with Tan Sri Taib's Swiss accounts? Well, you tell me.

There seems to be some truth in the widespread rumours that the Anti-Corruption Agency visited a federal cabinet minister in his office, and took away files. This minister got a hint of what was in store when the prime minister, on his return from two months' leave, asked him an unexpectedly jaunty question. Many cabinet ministers worry so much about their shadows that he assumed the worst. He did not have to wait long: the gentlemen called on him a few days later. He had expected to be sacked in the on-off-on-off-on-off-on.. cabinet reshuffle.

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