Who is in charge now?

by Dr Hsu 

The cabinet has decided that Section 114A is to stay.

This is despite the fact that power that be as high as the Prime Minister has mentioned publicly that it needs to be reviewed.

In the Malaysian tradition once the Prime Minster has publicly stated that that Section needs to be reviewed, it is really rare to see the whole cabinet of which PM is the head coming to a decision that runs counter to the PM’s.

Reading between the lines, it shows how precarious the PM’s own position is, and that vultures are ready to pounce on him if he does not deliver a better result the next GE. It makes me wonder who is really in charge of the country now.

I wrote about this section on 20th June and I paraphrase a part of it here:

The new Evidence Act is a killer. It is meant to stifle freedom of expression on the net. It is something akin to some criminals, who committed a crime in your house, and while the criminals escape, you as the owner of the house is being held responsible.

Say someone came in and robbed patients sitting in my waiting room. while the robber got away, I would be held as responsible for the robbery happening onthem. It is ridiculous, and no one would agree to that. Extrapolate this to the Evidence Act, and it is actually the same thing. 

It is like  a person  visiting a high rise building and throwing a flower pot down to kill someone, and then the person who is now held responsible is the owner of that building.  It is like you go to  a coffee shop, borrow the phone and call someone to threaten him, and then the police will haul up the owner of the coffee shop as the person who should be held responsible.

It is like a person who  visits  a minister’s house during a open house and then uses his phone to send a derogatory sms and then the person being held responsible would be the owner of that house, the minister ( In most likelihood, this minister would not be held responsible  since that is also a Malaysian tradition).

It is really against the principle of fairness. It also makes police work much easier. It is  pronouncing guilt on the owner and he has to prove beyond doubt that he is innocent.

It is guilty until proven innocent.

And to prove innocent, the owner will probably has to hire his own investigative team to track the real culprit.

This is really agianst common sense too.