No Cabinet Minister can honestly and responsibly claim he does not know the contents of the Vijandran videotapes and that the matter should be decided by the Courts

Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, at the Perak DAP State Committee meeting in Ipoh on Thursday, 15th February 1990 at 8pm

No Cabinet Minister can honestly and responsibly claim he does not know the contents of the Vijandran videotapes and that the matter should be decided by the Courts

It was reported in today’s press that Barisan Nasional leaders have agreed to defer any decision on the position of the Dewan Rakyat Deputy Speaker, D.P. Vijandran, until the outcome of the court case. This is a repetition of the refrain by Datuk Samy Vellu that the Barisan Nasional leaders cannot pre-judge Vijandran until the outcome of the court case on the Vijandran pornographic videotapes scandal.

I believe no Cabinet Minister can honestly and responsibly claim that he does not know the contents of the eleven Vijandran videotapes and four envelopes of 2,000 photographs and that the matter should be decided by the Courts, for the simple reason that the Cabinet can easily find out about the contents of the Vijandran videotapes and photographs by calling up the Police or the Attorney-General to give a briefing to the Cabinet.

In fact, I will even say that it is the duty of the Cabinet, as the highest executive organ of the government, to find out from the Police and Attorney-General about the contents of the videotapes.

If the Police and the Attorney-General had not briefed the Prime Minister and the Cabinet about the contents of the eleven Vijandran videotapes and the four envelopes of 2,000 photographs burgled from Vijandran’s house in August 1988, then the Police and the Attorney-General have both acted in a most irresponsible and negligent manner.

Or have they briefed the Cabinet and the Ministers about the contents of the Vijandran videotapes and photographs, but they have all conspired to claim that this had not been done so that the Ministers could publicly claim that they did not know about the contents of the Vijandran videotapes and photographs, and repeatedly declare that they could not pre-judge Vijandran?

There is no leg for the Cabinet Ministers to stand on for them to claim that they do not know about the contents of the Vijandran videotapes and photographs, as the Government, through the Police and the Attorney-General, know what the videotapes and photographs are all about.

In fact, if the Vijandran videotapes and photographs are ordinary tapes and photographs, why should they be kept in the safe?

Secondly, why should the Attorney-General direct that the videotapes and photographs should be destroyed as if they were some highly dangerous or explosive material – although there was no order from any magistrate for such a lawful destruction to take place?

Attorney-General should offer to present himself before a Parliamentary Inquiry Committee to testify on his unlawful destruction of the eleven Vijandran pornographic videotapes and 2,000 photographs

For the past one month, the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman, has not been able to cite a single legal, authority to prove that he has right to destroy the eleven Vijandran pornographic videotapes and 2,000 photographs – which are important evidence for on-going police investigations into police reports connecte4d with the videotapes and photographs.

The Attorney-General should offer to present himself before a Parliamentary Inquiry Committee to testify on his unlawful destruction of the eleven Vijandran porn videotapes and 2,000 photographs, as the Attorney-General is finally responsible to Parliament for all his actions.

Unfortunately, political developments in the recent years have so encroached and distorted Constitutional provisions that certain offices seemed to have arrogated to themselves powers which were never intended for them by the fathers of the Constitution.

Thus, the Attorney-General seems to have become an office which is higher and mightier than the laws of the land, the Constitution and even Parliament.

If the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General still believe in the concept of parliamentary democracy, and a government answerable to Parliament, then the Prime Minister should present a White Paper on the first day of Parliament on February 26 for the Attorney-General to justify his unethical, improper, unjustifiable and unlawful destruction of the eleven Vijandran videotapes and 2,000 photographs.