Contempt of Court

• 21 July 2017
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In the most recent phase of Anwar Ibrahim’s attempts to right the gross injustice done to him by Malaysia’s “Court of Appeal” and rubber stamped by its equally grotesque Federal Court in overturning his acquittal and sending him to five years in prison he has asked the High Court to annul the whole proceedings on the basis of the recently disclosed information that arch criminal Najib paid his stooge Shaffee 9 Million ringgit to conduct the case and the appeal.

Significantly neither of these rogues has admitted to the payment despite incontrovertible evidence that it was made. When obliged by the High Court to file an answer to Inche Anwar’s application to annul the original miscarriage of “justice” they could do no better than ask that that application be struck out as frivolous and vexatious!

Certainly five years unjustified jail time is vexatious (to Anwar if not to them) but the only frivolous aspect was the insult to the High Court in filing such a response. Shafee has not been heard of seen since this news broke. Unsurprising since, among other things, his part in it must lead to his disbarment in Malaysia.

The nub of the matter is the grounds on which Najib and Shafee asked that the suit be dismissed. They claim that far from being a proper and perfectly legal use of Malaysian law it is “contrary to the Constitution and to the Sedition Act!

Maybe whoever consents to act for them, and he would have to be pretty hungry and careless of professional reputation, will try to argue these two points. First the Constitution. Where in that supreme law of Malaysia is a prohibition on applications to a Malaysian Court. Certainly there are provisions about the supremacy as ruler of the Yang di Pertuan Agong but none giving either Najib or his puppy such protection.

That leaves the mention of sedition. This offence was introduced in 1948 by a colonial administration seeking to deal with communist subversion. Quite recently the criminal Najib, using his fraudulently gained majority in Malaysia’s Parliament, widened this law to cover anyone who publicly disagreed with him. A shameful perversion of democracy fully consistent with his Premiership and his corrupt UMNO members of parliament.

However Inche Anwar is not seeking to state the obvious, that Najib is a mega criminal, but that his and Shafee’s actions were so improper that his trial and conviction should be overturned. To describe that application to the Court as seditious is plainly ludicrous, impertinent and a contempt of the High Court which will, hopefully, severely punish it. At the very least by refusing to hear any such ridiculous arguments.

What all this shows is that Najib subverted the course of Justice by mounting a false accusation against Inche Anwar. An accusation rightly thrown out by the High Court despite the pleadings of the 9 million mouthpiece. There followed a gross travesty of justice in the Appeal and Federal Courts of which those taking part should be eternally professionally ashamed, even if there is, presently, no proof of other motivation.

Anwar is fully entitled to a declaration by the High Court ruling that the first trial there should be upheld and that therefore the later action in the higher courts were ultra vires their jurisdiction and the law of Malaysia.

We shall look forward to seeing how this pre-trial maneuvering proceeds. What legal lunacies Najib’s lawyers will next come up with; if any. And whether Natural Justice, the rules of which should dispensed in Malaysian Courts will be followed in such an obvious case. We are not holding our breath. Recent, and possibly anti-constitutional, appointments in the top courts do not bode well. However the High Court can be expected to serve up justice and one is sure that they will do so.