This is what I wrote in my column in Harakah for its issue of 1-15 February 01, on sale from 17 January 01

The flexible and, and true to style, unbending minister, Tan Sri Musa Mohamed, flip flopped when he met the parents yesterday (16 January 01) and decreed the school would remain open. The official spin is different, of course. He told the press if the SRJK (C) board of governors could not persuade pupils to move to new schools, the school remains it is. But is it the storm in a tea cup he says it is now? Is it? The government inexplicably raised the ante in the run-up to the move, riding roughshod over the needs of the community. Its argument that the board of governors had agreed to move is neither here nor there. The board of governors, in this instance, has much to answer for. This hidden motive is hinted of in news reports of the confrontation.

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.

01-15 January 01

An unknown viral hand-foot-and-mouth outbreak kills toddlers and infants in Singapore and Malaysia, throwing one into panic and the other to a laid-back discussion on what could have killed them. The Singapore panic is neutralised in the swift, no-nonsense reaction to contain it: the closure of public amenities to toddlers and infants until they are certified safe. Four died, which in a small state like Singapore, is serious. In neighbouring Johore, more than 200 kids had symptoms of the disease since January but only the first death last week brought it to public notice. The authorities suggest it is the Coxsackie virus which killed more than a hundred children in Sarawak three years ago, though at that time the authorities would not admit to even that. The Malaysian authorities worry about the strain that killed the children than the deaths itself. The Prime Minister accuses Kelantan of poor water supply for the outbreak of cholera there, which he insinuated is different from viral infections like the hand-foot-and-mouth disease, that Kelantan deliberately caused it while the hand-foot-and-mouth disease is viral, and therefore unblamable on his health ministry.

Within UMNO itself, after Tun Abdul Razak's unexpected death in January 1976, there was no clear cut successor. Tun Razak had, as Tan Sri Abdullah, points out in his New Straits Times column "On The Record" (NST, 26 September 00, p12), identified a brood of politicians who could take over from him. Amongst them were Dr Mahathir, Tengku Razaleigh, Dato' Musa Hitam, Tun Ghafar Baba. Indeed, if Tengku Razaleigh had joined the cabinet, instead of continuing to head Petronas and Bank Bumiputra Malaysia Berhad, after the 1974 general elections, he would have been deputy prime minister under Tun Hussein. But he miscalculated. He was not an outsider. The outsider was Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, the then home minister. When Tun Hussein wanted him as deputy prime minister, the three UMNO vice presidents -- Ghafar Baba, Tengku Razaleigh, Dr Mahathir -- in a demarche said none would serve if one of them was not appointed deputy prime minister. Only the three said they would not serve, not as Tan Sri Abdullah insists the UMNO Supreme Council. Ghafar was not considered, Tengku Razaleigh was not in the cabinet, leaving only Dr Mahathir, who was. This was done in anti-Hussein surroundings, in the fallout from the Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Harun Idris's arrest for corruption, with his backers accusing close aides of Tun Razak as being pro-communist. This led to Tan Sri Abdullah's detention under the Internal Security Act for five years. But that is another story.
Tan Sri Abdullah is right when he suggests Tan Sri Lee and the MCA president preferred Tengku Razaleigh to Dato Seri Mahathir Mohamed as UMNO deputy president and therefore deputy prime minister after Dato (later Tun) Hussein Onn became Prime Minister in 1976 after Tun Abdul Razak Hussein died in London. He was close to Tengku Razaleigh, and he paid the price by being forced to resign. There was no question that UMNO stabbed him in the back. He miscalculated in his support for who should be UMNO president and paid dearly. He had to go. The MCA leaders themselves decided it could not have as president one who backed the Prime Minister's rival. That they did underlines not that the MCA has Chinese support but when the crunch comes, they had no choice but to kill their leader for putting lucrative contracts at risk. The non-Malay parties in the National Front survive, especially after the 1969 riots, by destroying their own standing with their communities if their leader's links with the UMNO president suffers. The MCA leaders' ability to shoot themselves in the foot when everything works in their favour is uncanny. It also makes Tan Sri Lee's claim the MCA had Chinese support even more questionable. When Dr Mahathir became Prime Minister in 1981, Tan Sri Lee's political career had come to an end, especially when Tengku Razaleigh prepared to challenge Dr Mahathir for the UMNO presidency after Dato' (now Tan Sri) Musa Hitam was appointed deputy prime minister. The MCA realised that with Tan Sri Lee as their leader, it would suffer at the hands of a vindictive Prime Minister. So, he had to go. That paradoxically proved how misguided Tan Sri Lee was at his victory in Seremban in the 1982 general elections.

If the minister is serious about unconscionably delaying justice, he must address the root problems, even if necessary setting up a Special Court to dispose of cases where the matter is clear cut, like in cases of clear breaches of contract, extend the court hours to late at night to clear the backlog, ensure that judges deliver judgements in time, that lawyers who delay be penalised, and have judgements and orders issued without bureaucratic hassles automatically. The court procedures must be streamlined. In the little I have seen of the courts, every step in the development of a case is subject to delays in the administration of justice itself. A five-man bench due to hear my case in January 1997 was inexplicable postponed a year later and heard before a three-man bench. That the three man bench has yet to deliver judgement does indicate that there is a conundrum it cannot resolve; if, on the other hand, I had lost the appeal, I would wager the last dollar in my pocket, it would have been delivered in double quick time. Would the minister address issues like these rather than provide instant ill-thought out fixes in the administration of justice? I somehow doubt it.

The Prime Minister's television interview with Bernama in London on Thursday (27 January 1999), a desperate public relations measure taken to dampen the intense speculation at home, was a bravura Mahathir performance. It was flashed by satellite feed and released on the local networks within hours. It indicated the seriousness of public disbelief of the official version of events. But h did not address what happened in his Argentinian estancia, except in passing, which turned his much-needed holiday a political nightmare. After stonewalling press qaueries in Kuala Lumpur about it, an official spokesman allowed that a "gentleman" in the party fell; that soon became one of his bodyguards. The Prime Minister himself would not say more than that one of his entourage did. Instead of addressing what caused much speculation in Malaysia, he attacked Mr George Soros, the Hungarian-born financier he once blamed for sparking off the Asian economic crisis two years ago, in words that could well apply to him: "Actually, Soros is finished ... a discredited player in the currency market ... a non-entity whom no one listens to anymore." He skipped the central issue on why he does not attend the World Economic Forum in his television political commercial. But he told the World Economic Forum at Davos he would not attend because of "political problems" at home.

Litigants must leave the court convinced they had had both a fair hearing and a fair judgement, especially if they lose. But the activities of Dato' Lingam ensures one cannot be sure in any case he appears. In the defamation case mentioned earlier, Mr Justice Mokhtar Sidin rushed the case through, awarded RM10 million or half the figure Tan Sri Vincent wanted, which he picked up from the air, refused to allow the defendants to engage counsel when the counsel appointed discharged himself. The Court of Appeal confirmed the High Court decision. After obtaining leave, MGG Pillai appealed to the Federal Court. The five-man bench due to hear the appeal in January 1997 was abruptly cancelled. A year later, a three-bench heard the appeal after dismissing Pillai's application to have it heard before the earlier allowed five-man bench -- "We are short of judges", the Chief Justice said -- with a decision promised in March 1998. It still has not.

The Berita Harian editor-in-chief, Mr Ahmad Rejal Arbee, admitted in the Industrial court yesterday (14 July 1999) that when holding a similar position at the Sun Media Group, which publishes the Sun newspaper, he would refer stories written by his reporters about the owner, his companies and his friends -- "in certain instances" -- to that international business man of unquestioned repute, Tan Sri Vincent Tan -- for routine clearance. In 1994, in the libel action he brought against a Malaysian business magazine and several reporters, Tan Sri Vincent insisted, under oath, that my assertion in an article that he interfered in the Sun newspaper's editorial functions was false and libellous; the High Court accepted his unproven assertion -- he brought no witnesses to back up his case for libel -- and awarded a total of RM10 million in libel damages, of which RM2 million was against me. The Court of Appeal dismissed my appeal; the Federal Court gave leave and heard the appeal after postponing the hearing for a year and reducing the promised five-man bench to three, in January 1998. Judgement has not been delivered, despite the passage of 18 months. But Mr Rejal Arbee's testimony yesterday does suggest the probability that Tan Sri Vincent perjured in his evidence in his libel action against me.

One dominant Malaysian company however thinks a certificate from the supplier of machinery that these machines are Y2K compliant have them grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat while flaunting them to skeptics. But the problem is the embedded chips, for which guarantees cannot be given. Imagine the plight of airlines, flying with thousands of embedded chips in its controls, and on control towers. In any case, for RM10, you could get a CD from Imbi Plaza that promises to correct the problem. It does not, as one computer specialist found out when he tested it. Why should that matter? Sell 10,000 CDs and you have made a nice run of money. The government has resolved that problem by setting up a committee to resolve the problem. Given the way committees work, two things can happen: it will lose interest until 30 December 1999; or it would come out with a report on 2 January 2000.

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.

The appellants were allowed a five-man bench when hearing was first scheduled in January last year, but that was postponed. But the court rejected Pillai's counsel's request for both a five-man bench and for the Chief Justice, Tun Eusoff Chin, to step down for a newspaper comment attributed to him that libel damages should not be capped.

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