He said: “There are parties who also question his personality and this is unfair. A person has to be judged by his performance in his field. Let Abdul Gani do his job and then we can judge his efficiency and his performance.” (New Straits Times).
It is time that Rais wake up to the fact that Malaysia is no more in a feudal era but is an open democratic society with increasingly higher standards expected of the high public servants in terms of accountability, transparency and integrity.
It is not only the Opposition but the Malaysian citizenry who will not cease questioning the credibility of Gani as the new Attorney-General unless there could be satisfactory accounting of six important issues by Gani and the government, viz:
Firstly, clear the constitutional cloud of the propriety and legitimacy of Gani’s appointment, after the constitutional farce and muddle created by Rais in prematurely announcing Gani’s appointment on November 19 even before the invocation of Article 145(1) of the Constitution for the Prime Minister to advise the Yang di Pertuan Agong on the appointment (and most shocking of all, Gani’s own announcement of acceptance of the appointment when he knew that the Yang di Pertuan Agong had not even been advised on the matter)
On 8th December, 2001, Rais announced that Acting Yang di-Pertuan Agong
Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin had consented to the appointment of Gani
as the
new Attorney-General from Jan 1, succeeding Datuk Seri Ainum Mohd Saaid
by signing the document the previous day ( five days before the appointment
of the new 12th Yang di-Pertuan Agong by the Special Conference of Rulers),
raising two further questions:
Secondly, a policy declaration by Gani whether as Attorney-General
he would place as his greatest challenge the restoration of public confidence
in the fair, independent and impartial administration of justice, as ending
all selective and politically-motivated prosecutions, and fully co-operate
with the Chief Justice of the Federal Court, Tan Sri Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah
who declared when he first assumed the highest judicial office in the land
in December 2000 that his first priority was to restore public and
international confidence in the judiciary.
Thirdly, Gani should fully account for his role as head of the prosecution division in the AG’s Chambers in the years which plunged the Malaysian system of justice into national and international disrepute, as in the prosecution of Lim Guan Eng, Anwar Ibrahim, Karpal Singh and Irene Fernandez;
Fourthly, Gani to explain the allegations made against him and the Federal Court’s remarks in the Zainur Zakaria contempt case over his alleged misconduct in procuring evidence in former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s corruption trial;
Fifthly, Gani to explain and clear himself in connection with the police report for corruption which Anwar Ibrahim had lodged against him
Sixthly, Gani to explain why, as head of Prosecution Division of the Attorney-General’s Chambers, there was no cross-appeal against the extremely lenient sentence of two months’ jail sentence for the former Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Rahim Noor, for the heinous crime of assaulting a defenceless, blindfolded and handcuffed Anwar Ibrahim to within an inch of his life in the Bukit Aman police headquarters lock-up when he was first arrested in September 1998.
Considerable controversy has been stirred by media reports of the statement by DAP national publicity bureau secretary Gobind Singh Deo endorsing the appointment of Gani as the new Attorney-General.
The question of Gobind’s retraction of his statement as reported by the media does not arise as DAP leaders have clarified the position and the DAP allows for diversity of opinions and views.
(19/12/2001)