Justice is dead? Not quite

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was imprisoned last week, sentenced to five years’ jail. Whether or not justice was served that day would largely depend on which Malaysian you ask.

To some, who are convinced that Anwar did it, justice was indeed served. After all, he has had his long days in court – with so many postponements. Stop playing victim! Face the time.

To others, who are convinced this is all a political conspiracy, justice has died in Malaysia for the umpteenth time. Then there were some, who like me, believe what a man or woman does in the confines of his or her bedroom, as long as its consensual, is none of the state’s business.

Whichever position you take, a lingering question everyone is asking is: “What’s up that young man’s a** when he lodged that report?”

There are legal implications from the case that has yet to be fully discovered: the apparent removal of the requirement that evidence needs to be corroborated; the admissibility of evidence; credibility of the witness; and so on. The conclusion?  “Justice is dead”.

But I do think that term, at least in Malaysia, is overused. The judiciary has been dying, repeatedly, depending on which side of the divide you are on and whether you are born in 1988, 1992, 1999, 2002, 2010, 2011 and 2015. In between those times, whenever the judge rises to the occasion and rules a brilliant ruling, we rarely hear it outside the Malaysian Law Journal or within legal circles.

Supporters of Anwar were quick to point out the irregularities of this case and rightly so. 

But Sodomy 2 (and 3 and 4 and God alone knows how many more there will be) is not, and should not be, the only case of “injustice” we talk about: deaths in custody, wrongful dismissals for doing the right thing, rapists walking free because they can bring in sports medals, rapists walking free because they marry their victims, child marriages, custody battles involving conversions, Orang Asli and native rights… and the list goes on. The fervour displayed should apply equally here, more so as they have an even lesser voice and do not have the attention of the media or the international community.

So if the judiciary is indeed dead, why flog a dead horse?

Should not we be fighting even harder to reform the judiciary? To put a stop to the rot? 

Restoring confidence in the judiciary is not as simple as changing the government. The three organs of the government – the executive, the legislative and the judiciary – should function independently of each other. So, to suggest changing the government to change the judiciary is both over-simplistic and, frankly, rather hypocritical from people who hold democratic values as one their core struggles.

The system needs to be reformed to allow more transparency. Amendments to the Constitution and laws on the courts preventing judges from exercising their rights and duties to serve justice must first be repealed and this should be the clear goal of any reform campaign.

While we now have individual campaigns for cases where perceived miscarriages of justice have happened – and this is good – this could be collated into a cohesive campaign against bad judgments. Emphasis should be given to old cases and lesser known ones, not just cases where the perceived victim is a deputy prime minister or an MP. Perhaps we can also appeal to the wisdom and compassion of persuasive jurisdictions, sister Commonwealth nations, and even other Asian countries. Another thing to push for would be to fight for the right of academics to give their views without persecution.

Academics could then be allowed to perform their right and duty to point out errors in the law from an academic point of view and discredit it point by point, so that future judges will be forced to take into account these views by the very burden you will now place upon them. Put them back into what we are told were the golden age of yesteryears.

Laws should also be questioned. The Act used in Anwar’s case, for example, an act that makes oral sex an offence punishable by a jail term for homosexuals and heterosexuals. Who should do this? Everyone. It could be spearheaded by legal practitioners, civil-society leaders, but ultimately everyone should be fighting for a transparent judiciary.

Justice is not just about one man.

Everyone deserves justice, so everyone should be fighting for it. – February 17, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.