DrM & ISA

I don’t know whether I am supposed to cry, laugh, jump for joy, do a poco-poco or just polish my shoes.

But, according to a Malaysian Insider report, Tun Dr Mahathir now agrees that the ISA should be repealed. He however denies that the ISA had been abused.

The good Tun also said that Malaysia’s decision to repeal the ISA puts us on a “higher moral ground” than the UK or US as these countries apparently now detain people without trial.

Good one Tun. Thank you for firstly admitting that with the ISA around, we, as a nation, were on a lower moral ground. I agree with that.

By the way, the UK and US do not detain journalist, opposition politicians, people with political ideologies or belief which happen to be different from yours, people who spread stupid rumours via text messages (we call “sms”), a Muslim who apparently converted to Christianity and who apparently was actively trying to convert other Muslims to Christianity, passport forgers, bloggers and the likes.

The US does not even detain its own citizen without trial. They only detain “aliens” under the Patriot Act. Even then, the remedy of habeas corpus is readily and absolutely available to them. The US’ attorney general is obligated under the Patriot Act to make a report on all the detainees for the scrutiny of the Senate every six months.

Here, it was you who amended the ISA to take away the power of the Courts in relation to habeas corpus. The Courts, after your amendment, could only look at fullstops and comas while entertaining habeas corpus applications.

You also amended the Federal Constitution to take away the Court’s inherent and judicial powers. Our courts are the only courts in the whole universe which DO NOT HAVE JUDICIAL POWERS UNLESS THE PARLIAMENT SAYS SO!

(And here we have people like Tun Zaki, the ex Chief Justice declaring that he has managed to restore our Courts to its former glory. Has he even read article 121 of the Federal Constitution?)

By the way I have only one question.

If the ISA is so bad, so much so that it makes Malaysia and all of us to be on a low moral ground, and so much so that Tun DrM agrees that it should be repealed, doesn’t that make all actions under or pursuant to the ISA abusive?