Don’t let the crooked hijack our courts

If some Dick implicates me in the court of law for receiving (or paying) bribes, I hope you won’t be a dick, too, and believe every word said under oath as gospel truth. Desperate people will do anything to get out of the hole they had dug for themselves and let somebody else fall into that hole. 

This could be the case facing Anifah Aman, whose name was the latest to be mentioned in the ongoing corruption case involving former Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi. One David Tan Siong Sun, an “admin manager” with Ultra Kirana Sdn Bd, testified that he delivered money to the former Foreign Minister. Details told to the court about the ‘transaction’ are sketchy, however.

Anifah has come out publicly to deny this. “I have never met David Tan nor have I received any monies from him or UKSB,” he said in a press release yesterday. “I am willing and able to assist any investigations by authorities on this to clear my good name.” [Read the story, find out who UKSB is, h e r e.

Here’s the thing: we are getting a lot of such (so-called) revelations and allegations in our courts these days. Anifah isn’t the only one who feels he’s been defamed in court. Just the other day, a witness in the same case claimed that Health Minister KJ also received money. Former PM Muhyiddin Yasin and former Sabah Chief Minister Shafie Apdal were implicated, too. 

Some people think that because something is said in court it must be true. We know from history that that’s horse shit. Crooks will swear on the Quran or the Bible and lie through their teeth or throw other people under the bus to avoid jail or save their master. When it fits them, they will even claim to be senile and say they can’t remember.

How the media report this kind of manipulation of our courts of law is important in order to ensure that justice is done (at the very least, to ensure that their readers stay smart and are not hoodwinked). Prosecutors and judges, too, must draw the line so that crooks don’t get to use the court of law to pursue their own interest and narrative. That’s crucial to ensure that justice is seen to be done.