Courts Conviction of Supreme Political Elite & Conditions In Our Prisons.

On August 23rd the Federal Court consisting of a quorum of five judges unanimously upheld the conviction of former prime minister Dato’ Sri Haji Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak and committed him immediately to serve his prison sentence. That decision and the guilty verdict for corruption on Dato Sri Rosmah, his wife, were of the utmost watershed significance in the history of the nation. It was a most severe indictment of a former prime ministerial couple. That most discerning Malaysianist, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew had sought separate meetings with this once most powerful couple in June 2009, barely two months after Najib had become prime minister because Lee saw them working 'as a team.’

A prime minister is not the head of state of Malaysia but some actions of previous prime ministers suggested that they acted like the ultimate authority, supreme power, and most influential decision maker in the country. That virtually unchallenged position implied that the prime minister became the center, fountain, controller, and the actual architect of various values, norms, and standards of conduct; the character of virtually every government entity and even government-linked entities was determined largely by the prime minister although he could not determine the election of particular members of parliament.

With these rather broad and sweeping attributes and powers, the prime minister can be expected to have succeeded in commanding a huge following by fair and foul means.

Opponents, critics, and objectors of the prime minister’s style and conduct of governance from within even his own political alliance would become willy-nilly at or without the prime minister’s behest, victims and targets of various attacks. Prominent victims of such dismissal cases and denigration and smear campaigns include two deputy prime ministers and a former attorney general. Their fault was that they did not see eye-to-eye with the incumbent prime minister. This sort of summary dismissal action against any deputy prime minister simply illustrated the overly powerful significance of the prime minister in the overall Malaysian government context. When a powerful prime ministerial household gets audaciously involved in corruption they then invariably pose a great danger to good business-like bureaucrats and anti-corruption activists. In fact, in a weak system government officials known for their strictness and straightforwardness become victims of vicious superiors. Such good and honest officials can often be penalized with slower promotion and by being sidelined. It is easy to imagine the plight of civil servants who stood up against Najib or Rosmah. On the other hand, those few rare ones who had acted correctly and courageously to realize some general good for the country or a great saving will also not be rewarded in this distressed and distracted bureaucracy.

In Malaysia, the prime minister had evolved to be so overly conscious of his uniquely powerful position for decades. In 1994, for instance, during Dr. Mahathir’s administration, the Supreme Court was renamed the Federal Court. The head of the judiciary who had been designated the Lord President previously came to be known as the Chief Justice.

The word ‘supreme’ which was deemed inappropriate for the apex court which had the highest institutional significance was retained for UMNO’s supreme council. It would seem that it was such a childish and cretinous decision to rename the apex court the Federal Court while retaining the superlative ‘supreme’ term for the political party’s highest council.

The Supreme Court was no croquet or comedy court and it is about time the apex court reverts back to being the Supreme Court. It is timely, especially after the shameless shenanigans displayed by recent UMNO presidents and their supreme councils. The Supreme Court is a formidable and fundamental pillar of a sovereign nation and it cannot, in any sense be related to or ranked as being in any way less or subordinate to an organ of a political party. Indeed recent UMNO presidents seem to have operated under the delusion that whatever actions they took were absolutely in consonance with National Interest and they should not be subject to almost any scrutiny, criticism, or the provisions of the law and our Constitution. UMNO presidents had for four decades, it would appear, become the local political deity, demigod, or Godfather. This is a most unfortunate development in an evolving democracy because the Constitution and statutes should apply to everyone equally irrespective of their affiliation or station.

When there’s a genuine grievance no one would hope to seek redress and get justice from the UMNO Supreme Council but there is much expectation and hope for that from the apex court.

The grand old freedom-seeking party of Dato Onn bin Jaafar and Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra- Alhaj had evolved into a Frankenstein monster in the 1990s. UMNO had in those years already become a sort of a maximum prerogative entity. It would seem from the late 1980s its president began viewing all other entities in the country, including the judicature as lesser in authority, importance, legitimacy, and power. It was increasingly assumed what UMNO wanted was synonymous with what the state needed.

Ironically in mid- May 2018, the principal creator of that supreme prerogative halo around UMNO succeeded somewhat in altering that reality albeit for 22 months.

In 2022 the apex court's authority was being questioned in some curious ways by that same seemingly all-powerful UMNO which was led by a president who was deeply embroiled in embarrassing embezzlement charges.

The apex court is by no means a kangaroo court. Operating as the empowered prerogative agency or ‘the higher jurisdiction over all other jurisdictions’ UMNO consistently failed to rid itself of arbitrary, dishonest, and corrupt leaders and money politics which has bedeviled it for some 40 years.

Given the traction that UMNO officially and unofficially acquired and exercised from the 1980s, its considerable coercive power is still something that cannot be dismissed lightly. At the moment UMNO seems to be somewhat divided but its supreme elite believes that there is no necessity to imprison Najib or prosecute its current president. Najib has been in prison for more than a month but UMNO leaders indiscreetly harbor hopes that he could be freed if an early General Election was held. Thus Najib’s imprisonment does not change the reality that a deeply flawed UMNO is the supreme arbiter and influence in Malaysia.

The decision on Najib’s imprisonment comes more than half a century after Prof Syed Hussein Alatas's early warnings about elite corruption. It is therefore rather late but it is a meaningful start that elite corruption will be addressed gradually with the same passion that has been apportioned to petty corruption. That passion and commitment can only be realized if UMNO is out of power or it reforms itself.

Currently, Malaysia is in a rather lustreless, listless, almost leaderless, and unmoored state. There is talk of a general election as a cure-all for this sad state of affairs. For the first time in its history, a third-tier party leader is in charge of the government with somewhat solid backing from those members of parliament who do not belong to the prime minister’s own political party. The first tier of the PM’s party is in the news both attending court and defending himself against embarrassing embezzlement charges and other white-collar crimes. The second tier is in limbo managing party affairs and somewhat handicapped from operating at a federal or national governance level as he is not an elected federal MP.

UMNO’s previous president who had also been the PM for nine years is ensconced emblematically and effectively in prison. That pioneer former prime ministerial prisoner(PPMP) is doing everything possible creatively, politically, legally, medically, and socially with his enormous ill-gotten gains to escape the prison regimen. In this effort, he has had some good cosponsors, counsel, and the support of a segment of his old political party.

The people in general are indifferent or do not seem to know how to accept and digest the imprisonment of a former prime minister. He has appeared well attired in bespoke suits in court while arriving in marked prison vehicles. His bearing is not that of a contrite, cowering prisoner but a major celebrity. The media provides good coverage of the convicted felon. There is disbelief that he is really in prison. Yet he can’t be elsewhere except perhaps warded in a medical facility for a specific medical condition.

The greatest conundrum for PPMP, since his conviction and especially his imprisonment is that the current prime minister seems to understand some law and can explain somewhat the independence of court processes like PPMP’s own late father. PM Ismail Sabri Yaakob also seems to adhere to some legal norms and has maintained a stony (it ceased to be elegant a while ago) silence regarding his party compatriots who are facing embezzlement and corruption charges. The ‘court cluster’ is what these accused personalities whose fortunes have tumbled are called. PPMP had had in his prime ministerial tenure an inflated and unrealistic perception and experience of prime ministerial office because he had done the most bizarre and strangest things while holding that most important position. For instance, he took out RM 4 billion from a government pension fund and raised a further US $ 5 billion from borrowings and handed them to his son’s friend. The son’s friend did equally bizarre things such as hosting some boorish champagne bashes with some film world celebrities, splashing on artworks and real estate, and going on a Las Vegas gambling spree. Malaysian newspapers rallied to this display of crass, imbecile exhibitionism by extolling the expense and exoticism of these parties. It would seem that it did not occur to these news portals which published these newsworthy stories to ask where all that booty came from. Whose inheritance was the youthful fool squandering?

Now, after years of allowing these kinds of extravagance and excesses, PPMP is claiming innocence. The irony is he getting some sympathy, and support and is continuing to make waves among the electorate. Some of the wise ones say even after completing his prison term the humongous debts that he had run up in his tenure would not still have been paid up fully. Yet he received only a twelve-year jail term.

Need For Decent Conditions

That jail term must be the most demeaning experience for PPMP. Najib would not have imagined a life of imprisonment with standard issue prison clothes and crockery, an ever-present prison guard, life without a handphone, a valet, WiFi, and his preferred premium Habana cigars.

Society and the system have inflicted many deprivations on this cash-is-king’s life since his eviction from high office. He must be wistful of the paraphernalia of the past- the wonderful whirr of notes-counting machines ( didn’t she say in court no one saw the counting of the money).

It is such an anticlimax for this former prime minister of some pedigree

In an indirect and unique sort of way, Najib’s imprisonment brings about a greater awareness of the austere and rudimentary life for prisoners in Malaysia. In the great rush to construct the tallest and most iconic buildings as a nation, we have failed to provide adequately reasonable wages, affordable accommodation, and reliable public transport for the lowest economic rungs of our society. The accommodation available in our incarceration facilities is, apart from carrying a terrible stigma, unliveable for the average Malaysian. It is time to upgrade our prison facilities so that they are comparable with all the most advanced Asian entities such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. Prison life while implying a punitive element also has a corrective and re-educational function.

Someone who steals a bag of rice to feed a family can be tried and sent to prison like the elitist fraudster or insider trader who has caused billions in losses for the state. Both categories of imprisoned offenders deserve to be treated with some decency. Hardcore and violent criminals may, subject to the discretion of the appropriate authority be placed in a maximum security environment but their conditions too should be liveable and decent. There must be a sense of some humanity in imprisoning just anyone.

It is hoped that while Najib is a reluctant long-term guest of the government there will be a material change in our prison conditions. Talk of remission and a Royal pardon should not arise.

It is more important to show that Malaysians are not an uncaring lot even with their prisoners. Hopefully with the prospect of improved conditions, the missing persons in the 1MDB saga including Nik Faisal Kamil and Jho Low will be more amenable to facing trials in Malaysia.

Much more significantly the courts have played their assigned role dutifully and have provided a clear message that no one, including those identified as the supreme political elite, is above the law. To reinforce this message Najib must himself cease and desist from all further initiatives on the SRC case. That restraint will show that he respects the law.

The courts have demonstrated unequivocally that in our country they have a certain function for which they have fervency and fortitude. Every member of the judiciary has an obligation to live up to these highest ideals of placing the law above everything else.

Similarly, officials in incarceration facilities must step up to their allotted task and treat Najib like any other prison inmate.

M Santhananaban

Kajang

September 26, 2022