What has the Malaysian prosecution system denigrated into? A lawmaker was hauled to court for using the word ‘celaka Umno’. And the charge was under no less than the pernicious Sedition Act. On conviction a long jail term could follow.
Now, this word is used rather loosely and freely - in common parlance. Rude maybe, but hardly criminal.
What does this expression mean anyway? A cursory Google search gives a clue. It primarily means unlucky, unfortunate, disaster; and can be seen as an obscene word or an insult like “damn you”. An example enlightens: Wah so celaka lah - my car broke down yesterday.
Slightly more derogatory meanings are also listed - a**hole or s**t. The former implying a person who behaves like an ass - in such a silly way as to create a bad impression; the latter is described as an offensive word applied to someone you don’t like.
Lewis Carrol has something interesting to say on the use of words in the all-time classic, ‘Alice in Wonderland’:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - that’s all.”
So the ttorney-general (as the ultimate prosecution chief, although his role in this charge is not known) chose to give it a meaning that it carried a seditious tendency - a word that, in this context, suggests a tendency to give rise to racial upheaval. But is it not also capable of a benign, or a non-criminal, meaning? It is a cardinal principle of criminal law that if there are two plausible interpretations then the one that favours the accused must apply.
Well, at least the court has restored a semblance of balance to this otherwise needless charge. The judge acquitted the state assemblyperson without even calling for his defence. He ruled that these words were not seditious in nature - the prosecution could not prove that these words could provoke a breach of the peace.
“While the prosecution has proved that he has said those words in a speech, it has failed to prove the seditious element as Umno is not a racial group but a political group,” said the judge.
There are similar charges pending against the same assemblyperson; and others. Perhaps it’s time for the prosecuting authorities to use their rather limited resources to pursuing the real criminals.
GURDIAL SINGH NIJAR is a former law professor at Universiti Malaya.
