Salleh Abbas, apology and compensation

18.4.2008.

The UMNO circus continues. Now it's about  the celebrated proposed apology to Salleh Abbas. In the meantime, some cash has been passed, to "make up" for the pain etc. If that's not some kind of an apology, it sure  looks like it.  AAB decided on it, Najib says it's no apology, and not surprisingly, no one is satisfied. This is typical of the present leadership of UMNO - it's utterly confused.

The Salleh Abbas case is 20 years old. Salleh Abbas had written a book"May Day For Justice" in which he complains that the PM and the Agong were against him. Then he wrote that  letter to the Agong, saying, inter alia,that the PM had made comments and accusations against the Judiciary, both inside and outside of Parliament, that these comments had brought shame to the judges, leaving them mentally disturbed and unable to function, and that the Agong should stop these accusations. Surely an eminent fellow like Salleh Abbas was at that time aware of the fact that, unlike him, the PM was the elected leader of Malaysia with all the perogatives that office carried.

In the light of the full circumstances surrounding this whole sad episode, Salleh Abbas must have been out of his mind when he wrote that letter on 26th March, 1988. The Tribunal that judged on this case ( not  Mahathir as some might wish it to-day) was made up of the Acting Lord President Tun Abd. Hamid, a Singapore Supreme Court Judge T.S.Sinnathuray,a former Federal Court Judge Tan Sri Abd. Aziz, the Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Mohd. Zahir, the Sri Lankan Chief Justice K.A.P.Ranasinghe, and the Chief Justice of Borneo Tan Sri Lee Hun Hoe. I say let's move on. Even the editors at NST say so. 

So what is the game AAB is playing ? If he feels ( if level 4 says so ) this is an issue that he can revive to bolster his dwindling popularity , he should have the balls to form another of his so far fetid commissions to reexamine this case. I can assure you Mahathir would welcome it. For those interested, look for a book published by Pelandok in 1990, written by Peter Williams titled, I thought appropriately, "Judicial Misconduct". 

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