Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, at the ‘Towards Tanjung 2’ Dinner organized by the Sembilan DAP State Committee in Seremban on Wednesday, 2nd May 1990 at 9 p.m.
Attack on Judiciary an important reason to deny two-thirds parliamentary majority to Barisan Nasional
The unprecedented assault on the Judiciary, the expulsion of Lord President Tun Salleh Abas and two Supreme Court judges, Tan Sri Wan Suleiman and Datuk George Seah, and the erosion of the principle of the independence of the Judiciary is an important reason why the Barisan Nasional should be denied its two-thirds parliamentary majority in the next general elections.
The book by Tun Salleh Abas and K.Das entitled “May Day for Justice” raised the great question as to when did the Prime Minister actually first had the audience with the Yang di Pertuan Agong which triggered the chain of events leading to the gravest judicial crisis in Malaysian history.
According to the Salleh Abas Tribunal Report, the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Abu Talib Othamn, told the Tribunal:
“The practice in this country is that the Prime Minister normally has audience with the King on Wednesdays, i.e. the Cabinet Day when he briefs the King on Cabinet matters if the Agong is in the country and if the Agong wants that audience.
“In this case the Prime Minister had an audience with the King on the Wednesday morning i.e. on 1/5/88 at the Istana Negara.”
However, as “May Day for Justice” pointed out, the 1st day of May in the year 1988 was in fact a Sunday and a May Day public holiday, and not a Wednesday or a Cabinet day!
The Government cannot substitute another day apart from May 1, 1988, as the Tribunal Reports contained a letter from the Prime Minister to the Yang di Pertuan Agong referring to this meeting as being held on 1st May 1988.
When “May Day for Justice” was published in October last year, just before the CHOGM meeting, the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General had refused to throw light on this shocking discrepancy, which raised doubts as to whether the Prime minister had ever had an audience with the Yang di Pertuan Agong on May 1, 1988.
Attorney-General had not told the truth to the Salleh Abas Tribunal
Even in the book, Judicial Misconduct, by New Zealander Peter Alderidge Willams, which was clearly sponsored by the Prime Minister to tell the government’s story of the judicial crisis, there was no explanation as to why there was this important discrepancy on the date of May 1, 1988.
I have just received a written parliamentary reply to a question I submitted on this subject in the March meeting of Parliament, where the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and Minister of Justice, Datuk Dr. Sulaiman bin Haji Daud, said that the Prime Minister had an audience with the Yang di Pertuan Agong on 1st May 1988, and that the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Abu Talib, had made a mistake when he said that May 1 was a Wednesday.
This means that Tan Sri Abu Talib had not told the truth to the Salleh Abas Tribunal. But there was no explanation why the Attorney-General not only said that May 1, 1988 was a Wednesday, he even specified a s a Cabinet day.
Grave doubts and mystery still surround the Judicial Crisis of 1988. The book stating the Mahathir version of the crisis, ‘Judicial Misconduct’, is being sent out free, both in its hard-cover and paper-cover editions, to senior government servants, lawyers and other Malaysians, through the post, although unsolicited.
This clearly shows the parentage and background of the book ‘Judicial Misconduct’ – that it is not an independent assessment but an apologia for the government assault on the Malaysian judiciary.
If a foreigner had written a book denouncing Dr. Mahathir and the Barisan Nasional government for its role in the Judicial Crisis, the
Attorney-General would have come forward to denounce foreign interference with the domestic affairs of Malaysia. But there was no condemnation of the book,’ Judicial Misconduct’, although the charge of foreign interference in the domestic affairs of Malaysia could have been leveled. In fact, UMNO-controled newspapers serialized and eulogized it.