I refer to the Malaysakini report Time for Karpal to get pragmatic .
In the on-going (and I suggest dead-end) discussion and ‘investigation’ into the unsolicited legal opinion that Karpal Singh offered that the Sultan of Perak had no jurisdiction to countermand the order the Perak menteri besar to transfer the Perak Islamic Religious Affairs Department director, it beggars belief that it has been construed as a seditious act of l P se majest é , requiring nothing short of the stiffest of punishments possible.
It has so excited the prime minister, th deputy prime minister, the Attorney-General, the Inspector -General of Police and various Umno MPs to the point that it suggests that the other problems that Malaysia currently faces – rampant crime, corruption, political instability and so on – pale, in comparison, into insignificance.
Four thoughts come to mind:
1. Karpal’s legal opinion could be right, wrong or somewhere in between.
2. Karpal as a senior advocate and solicitor of the High Court of Malaya has every qualification and (as a mere citizen) every right to offer his legal opinion.
3. It is unlikely that the learned Sultan of Perak would have taken offence to the honest articulation of the legal opinion, even if he disagreed with it.
4. No one who knows Karpal would ever doubt his personal respect and affection for and loyalty to His Highness.
But if it still can be said he has offended in any way, surely such offence falls far short of the conniving and wilful acts of ex-premier Mahathir (and those who supported him) in 1983/84 when he used Parliament to, first, reduce the powers of the King to delay assenting to legislation; and, then, removing absolute immunity for the Malay Rulers.
Many of us lauded such actions as just and apropos, given democratic realities, but none of us were perverse enough to say that such acts were seditious or offensive, even though they were an attack (and, never doubt it, they were an attack!) on the powers, prerogatives and privileges of the Malay Rulers.
So why the hullabaloo now, when one of the best lawyers in the land merely makes his legal opinion (whether right or wrong) known? Surely what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander?
