Malaysians will only cease questioning the credibility of Gani as Attorney-General when there is satisfactory accounting of six  important issues by the government and Gani


Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang

(Petaling Jaya, Wednesday)The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim said in Kuala Klawang yesterday that the opposition should cease questioning the credibility of Datuk Abdul Gani Patail in performing his duties as Attorney-General.

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)



*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman