IN KUALA LUMPUR
There are two giant banners hung prominently in front of the huge Kuala Lumpur court complex, off Jalan Duta.
Buat Kerja – Do Your Work.
It caused some outrage and amusement when they first went up about a year ago. Surely, judges are not children who need to be told. Neither is their support staff.
But oh well, their workload has increased tremendously, thanks to the political upheavals in the last year. I’ve lost track of the cases, and it’s safe to say that most Malaysians have.
Cases arising from the toppling of the Perak state government last month have flooded the courts. They seem to be multiplying every few days, with new offshoots growing all the time.
The old opposition Pakatan Rakyat government has filed various suits on the take-over, while the new Barisan Nasional government has filed their own.
Arising from there, eight people have been charged with insulting the Sultan of Perak over his decision to install the BN government.
Today, veteran opposition politician Karpal Singh was charged with sedition for threatening to sue the Sultan.
There are a mind-boggling number of other defamation suits, as well as criminal defamation and illegal assembly cases in court involving bloggers and politicians.
On the one hand, political disputes are not immune from the law. Politicians are subject to the law. And the court is supposed to be a neutral party to deal with disputes of all kinds, purely on the law.
That is the theory anyhow. It’s intended to take politics out of the equation, and perhaps to defuse political tensions by having a neutral party arbitrate.
But at the same time, there’s no escaping the political nature of these cases. They are about politics. And like it or not, there are political considerations and implications.
The best political outcome – and when I say the best, I mean the best for the Malaysian people – may not be a purely legal one. Will it chart a way forward for a better Malaysia?
There is a serious leadership vacuum in Malaysia. It is locked in a messy political impasse, as the economy threatens to go into a tailspin. It’s not entirely clear if the court system can provide the best solution.