Finally Tian Chua reconsider not to appeal his police biting case

The case of Tian Chua being charged for biting police has finally returned to the focus of the alleged crime-so say reports of a PC at Parliament House. This is what it should be-not the other issue like whether Rm2000.00 constitute a penalty enough to disqualify an MP, Parliamentarian’s privileges etc.  This is a positive development as it return to the legal issue rather than let it get confused with political considerations. Earlier there were weird suggestions by the Parliament Lower House Speaker and Deputy Speaker to address the issue with a view to stop by-election: Wan Junaidy the deputy speaker suggested that Chua go to jail for 2 months as a way to evade the Rm2000.00 fine and thereby avoid the disqualification as MP. But by laws the prison term is only applicable when the convicted person cannot afford to pay the penalty -thus the penalty still stand, as noted by Karpal Singh. The Speaker Pandikar Amin suggest that so long that the government side don’t propose a motion to remove Chua then he is all right. This suggestion is most dangerous as it imply that the MP will be continuing only at the mercy of BN! This is certainly questionable from legal perspective as the disqualification based on the fine is automatic. Another aspect of this suggestion is that BN MPs will then never be disqualified since they can use party whip to stop any motion to disqualify their own MP who are convicted and fined no less than RM2000.00. What is a legal issue will then be totally politicised!

Tian Chua might appeal court decision

By Clara Chooi

June 21, 2010

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Kuli support public funding of party campaigns to fight corruption

Razaleigh Hamzah
Jun 19, 10
6:13pm
Below is an extract of the speech by Umno veteran politician Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah at the launch of ‘The Shafee Yahaya Story – Estate Boy to ACA Chief’, a book written by Shafee’s wife Kalsom Taib.

The word ‘corruption’ comes from a Latin word meaning ‘to break’ or ‘to destroy’. Corruption is a cancer that steals from the poor, eats away at governance and moral fibre, and destroys trust.

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Batu-better to have by-election or not?

This is a good time to understand how our elections system works-when there are some confusion on whether the Batu seat is vacant, now that the sitting MP is convicted of a crime whose penalty would cause the vacancy of the seat. There are some confusing statement on whether the seat should be vacated not so much that there are confusion in the laws-but in mixing political preferences into the considerations. Now let’s look at 1 possibility: The Rm2000.00 penalty is supposed to automatically disqualify a legislator. But the Speaker of the legislature may still take his/her time to make the call. So if the disqualification is called after 3 years of the election ie Mar 8th 2011, then the EC is not obliged to hold a by-election on account that the next election is too close. Then PKR/PR will lose 1 seat, without BN gaining 1. Then those who now charge that the BN has seemingly use the court to cut down PR’s MP so as to regain 2/3 majority in the Parliament  may want to reconsider their stand!

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1 year count-down to Sarawak State Election starts!

It is the last year (12 months) that the Sarawak state elections must be held from this month. Is it due to this fact that we hear some gung-ho political talks from both sides? PBB’s Taib Mahmud reportedly said that people should support BN irrespective of whether they like him personally or not, besides claim that the Bumiputra votes are in his pocket(Malaysian Mirror). DAP’s Wong Ho Leng claim that Sarawak PR can win the state elections-probably calculating on the growing unpopularity of the longest serving CM of Malaysia-not helped by expose of his unaccounted wealth created during his tenure as a CM. Many questions can be asked about the basis of their claims:

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