Long ago, Lat drew a cartoon. It compared a study on mosquitoes carried out by a foreign scholar and a Malaysian one. The foreign scholar is shown with a stack of books (volumes 1 to 5). The Malaysian scholar has a wafer-thin manuscript with an arrow that says: ‘Ini adalah nyamuk.’ Do you remember that? Lat should come out of retirement! That just about sums up the state of our schools. Most ...
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I was once asked to answer three questions at once. I think it was on Quora. Since then a lot of people have expressed interest in the questions and the answers I gave. I reproduce them here: Q-1: How difficult is it for a lawyer to set up his own firm? Q-2: How do lawyers advertise their services? Q-3: How do they attract clients to their firms? These were all questions related to the life ...
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There is a gem of a case on Islamic probate law. It was decided in 1994. For some reason it has not been reported. It is a great mystery. This is the story of that case A Muslim man, Ainuddin, died in 1944. As a Muslim he did not leave a will. He had sons and a daughter. Under pre-Independence law, Ainuddin’s residual property passed to his biological children, but in fixed ...
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You have seen the articles emerging from this blog since 09 May 2018 — or ‘5-0-9’ as I called the GE14 (the date of May 09th, 2018). There is a story behind these articles. Their production and timing were wholly accidental. In the years to come the people may become quiescent. They may, once again, feel re-assured behind their closed doors. But these issues filled the night of 5-0-9, like night-tracer shells from artillery. ...
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What happens when judges, bending like reeds in the wind, carry out the biddings of their political masters? Something extraordinary has to be done. Corrupt judges, past and present, ought to be publicly impeached. Can it be done? How?
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Can a judge say in his letter of resignation, "I resign, but the effective date is two months hence"?
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We are at it again. If a person makes an error once, one can attribute it to a lapse of judgement. If a person makes the same error repeatedly, something is not right. When the outgoing Chief Justice of the Federal Court (‘CJ’) and the President of the Court of Appeal (‘PCA’) were appointed there was widespread discontent with the process of their appointment. The complaint was that they had been appointed ...
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Someone asked me last week, ‘What did Karpal do for us? What did Lim Kit Siang?’ I blinked. I thought I didn’t hear it right. What did they do? The guy who asked was young. Too young. I attempted an answer and unaccountably slipped into melancholy. I began by saying... These men fought a long-drawn out battle against an implacable enemy—entrenched racism. They fought for the rule of law. They argued that the ...
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In the last few weeks we have been hearing the phrase ‘the Rule of Law’. It is time to examine this and another related concept, the ‘Separation of Powers’. If we do, we will encourage our nation rulers to work better, work more effectively, and work to produce justice. Rule of Law The concept of Rule of Law is easy to understand. You needn't be a lawyer to know what it is: you can ...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CX4NkBsvlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0aJu63DIik Is every vote of equal strength? Does every vote, cast at any part of the nation, possess the same effect? Let’s use the 2018 General Elections (GE-14) as an example. The Kapar parliamentary constituency [P109] represents one seat in parliament. The Putrajaya constituency [P125] also represents one seat. What is the difference? Kapar had, in GE-14, 124,983 voters. Putrajaya had 27,314 voters. So, comparing apple-to-apple, for a single parliamentary seat, Kapar had 4.6 times ...
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