It was with utmost, though not unexpected, dismay when I read of the clemency granted to death row prisoner Kenneth Lee Fook Mun @ Omar Iskandar Lee Abdullah. To the family of Linda Lee Good Yew, the woman Kenneth Lee murdered in August 2000, it's like a nightmare resurfacing all over again, when they thought that it was behind them and justice was served.

Even when his death sentence was imposed in 2005 and subsequently affirmed by the Federal Court in 2006, the general feeling was that Kenneth Lee would be let off the hook, mainly because he comes from an illustrious, connected family.

Perhaps what dismays me even more than the pardon itself is the apathy of our community, and the feeling that no matter what we say or do, there are a lot of things that we can do nothing about.

Court antics and all the wheeling and dealing that come with it are beyond the understanding of most of us. But when it comes to matters that affect us directly, we should be united in our outrage and disenchantment. It doesn't matter whether it's a little girl that's gone missing, a young woman who's been raped and murdered or a killer who has been let off.

We Malaysians have been accused of lacking in sustainability. We are very good at starting things, including mega projects, enthused by cries of ‘Malaysia Boleh’, but after a while, we run out of steam and let things slide.

Similarly, we are all up in arms when a crime is committed and demand action and retribution. But when the horror continues or leads run out, we retreat into numbed acceptance or are lulled into complacent silence, tuning in instead to Britney Spears’ latest crime of fashion.

Admittedly, we have much to be grateful for in this country. At every general election, we are reminded of how far we have progressed. And yet, there is the sense that we seem to be stuck in a miasma of deceit and corruption, and a web of spins and cover-ups.

The authorities now claim that the problem of overcrowding in our prisons can be dealt with by shipping all the foreign prisoners (who are taking up 40 percent of prison space) home without trial. How neat a solution is that?

Stopgap measures. Backpedaling. Outright denials. There seems to be one justice system for the well-connected higher-ups, one for the rest of the citizenry, and now, one for illegal immigrants.

Is it too much to ask for a clean, fair and open system, for all?