Having long assumed that Barisan Nasional (BN) had merely borrowed the symbolic scales from the figure of justice for its logo, I've become convinced by recent events that it's outright stolen them.

BN's been robbing justice blind for years, of course, but this has been apparent to us casual eye-witnesses only intermittently. In high-profile cases like Dr Mahathir Mohamad's smash-and-grab raid on the judiciary in the 1980s, for example, and snatch-thefts like the Anwar Ibrahim trials a decade later.

But it's become increasingly clear in recent times that BN has co-opted the scales for the purpose of tipping the forces of the law in its favour not just occasionally, but consistently and chronically. And kept the blindfold over the eyes of justice to celebrate its success in pulling the wool over the peoples' eyes with a combination of official obfuscation, blinkered media and laws designed to keep outsiders in the dark.