Stupid law, stupid results

By Lee Wee Tak

Law is man-made regulations. People make mistakes and bad people makes bad decisions. When bad people make law, we ended up with bad laws.

For decades, inadequate delivery systems have diverted our law makers from their original legislation duty to that of local councilors, rendering the due process of drafting progressive, fair and reasonable law as a secondary, or even ignored, role.

World Class Parliament = World Class Law = Good Place to Live

Crap Parliament = Crap Law = Crappy Place to Live

Within the MP ranks, with characters such as “close one eye”, “bocor” and “RM1 million FB page”, how many right minded tax payers can safely say they have the utmost confidence in their ability then?

This is what I have in mind when I read some of the laws relating to conduct of general elections.

According to section 15 of AKTA PILIHAN RAYA 1958, PERATURAN-PERATURAN PILIHAN RAYA (PENDAFTARAN PEMILIH) 2002,

1. Objections to any addition to the voters’ roll must be made within 7 days from the date the supplementary electoral roll is open for inspection; (supposedly every quarter hence 4 times a year)

2. A person can only object against up to 10 registered names only; and

3. A fee of RM10 is to be charged for each name being submitted for protest.

Section 15 made me choked on my tau foo fah, I tell you.

1. 7 days only limitation

Every quarterly updates may contain hundreds and thousands of names. Is it reasonable to allow only a 7 day window period for public to review and investigate?

Revisiting the disgusting errors DAP recently discovered – lesbian marriage involving a female army personnel, dozens of army wives carrying IC which actually belong to their husbands etc. These are not innocent, straight forward errors but sophisticated mischief not visible to the naked eye or reasonable bystander.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/reform-vote-now-as-evidence-mounts-says-dap-leader/

New voters have to wait for months before they can check if they are being registered properly so why the glaring double standard here? Income Revenue Board can investigate up to 7 years back, testing our memories to the limit and in case of fraud, there is no limit in the number of backlog years.

Yet, how come the mistake ridden SPR / EC is so damn well protected with this 7 days only ruling? Does the legislators ever thought of interested citizens do have other things to do in life? After multiple orgamistic screaming of Rakyat Diutamakan, this punter is extremely disappointed with the fake front, all form no substance.

How prominent and transparent are displays of these supplementary electoral rolls? We can see the newspaper publishing those lucky ones heading to National Service but where is the electoral roll being located for public inspection? SPR/EC has been doing a very poor job in this respect.

2. 10 objections per person

Limiting a person’s right to object more than 10, is without logic, especially with an error prone SPR/EC.

If a policeman sees 3 men committing a crime should we legislate and limit him to say, he can only arrest 2 persons a day only? Would that make sense? Why limit pursue of correct records?

To this tax payer, it appears to be a form of non-financial bailout of a Barisan Nasional dependent/supporting party.

If there is a sysmatic abuse, e.g. the dozens of shemales in the army camp, then surely there would be more than 10. A talented and committed individual who uncovered this would be blocked by this stupid rule.

I wonder what was said in the parliament when they scanned through this section, or did the ruling coalition bulldozed this through?

3. RM10 fee per protested person

It is also adding insult to injury to penalize concerned and justice-minded citizens for RM10 when SPR/EC (already well funded by tax payers) is suppose to investigate and correct their own gross, laughable and irresponsible or even errors.

If anything, the RM10 should be taken out from the salary of the offending SPR/EC personnel who is guilty of an offence under section 3 (1)(a) of Akta Kesalahan Pilihanraya, 1954 for knowingly make any false statement on or in connection with any application to be placed on any register of electors.

So when PAS brought up the magical 170,818 71'ers to JPN, would SPR/EC be anticipating a windfall of RM1,708.180 then? This is as plain a ripe off as I see it.

Helluva for Rakyat Diutamakan.

The 3 rules above are designed to frustrate initiatives to detect and act against deliberate or mass manipulation of electoral roll. The people drafting and approving this piece of legislation clearly do not have idea what fairness and justice means, or worse, have certain agenda in mind and practice.

The BN sponsored election practices review committee would do well to answer this tax payer by addressing the above.