Call on Mahathir and Cabinet to agree tomorrow that Parliament debate
the substantive motion on the judiciary on Monday
Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang
(Petaling Jaya, Tuesday): I call on
the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and the Cabinet to
agree tomorrow that Parliament debate the substantive motion on the judiciary
on Monday.
I have given notice that I would table the substantive motion on the
judiciary when Parliament meets on Monday for the budget session.
My substantive motion on the judiciary concerns crisis of confidence
in the independence and integrity of judges and it reads:
"That this House, under Standing Order 36(8),
"EXPRESSES grave concern at the most serious allegations
about judicial impropriety alleged in court in August in the Asian
Wall Street Journal (AWSJ) defamation case, viz:
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that the 1994 judgment by Justice Datuk Mohtar Sidin in the Tan
Sri Vincent Tan vs MGG Pillai defamation was ‘written in part by
the plaintiff's counsel, Dato V.K. Lingam, and initially typed by the said
Dato V.K. Lingam's secretaries, viz. one Jayanthi and Sumanthi’; that the
judgment was corrected by the said Dato V.K. Lingam and the final draft
dispatched’ to the judge ‘on floppy disk.’
-
That Datuk Lingam placed Chief Justice Tun Eusoff Chin in his
debt by getting their families to holiday together in New Zealand. The
holiday involved flights together to luxury resorts in Queenstown
and Christchurch, where Dato V.K. Lingam and the chief justice ‘posed for
pictures with their arms around each other and with each other's families.’
"NOTES that neither Tun Eusuff Chin nor Datuk Mohtar Sidin had responded
or cleared their name although more than a month had passed since the allegations
of judicial impropriety although they strike at the very core of public
confidence in judicial independence and intetgrity;
"CALLS on Tun Eusuff Chin and Datuk Mohtar Sidin to appear before
the full House of the Dewan Rakyat to answer the charges of judicial impropriety
and to defend their integrity."
As an independent and impartial judiciary is one of the 82 concrete
proposals in the 17-Point Chinese Organisation Election Appeal, MCA, Gerakan
and SUPP Ministers who have declared their support in principle for the
Election Appeal should speak up in Cabinet tomorrow to give their support
that the substantive motion on the judiciary should be the first item of
parliamentary business next Monday.
(12/10/99)
*Lim Kit Siang - Malaysian Parliamentary
Opposition Leader, Democratic Action Party Secretary-General & Member
of Parliament for Tanjong