Malaysians have every right to be extremely upset by the decision of the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) in not pursuing an appeal against Rosmah Mansor’s acquittal of 12 money laundering charges involving RM7 million and five charges of failing to declare her income to the Inland Revenue Board.
Such a decision is definitely another slap in the face of the Madani government, as sure as eggs are eggs.
In justifying its abysmal decision, the AGC sought to argue that the prosecution would not be able to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt as required when dealing with criminal charges.
The knee-jerk reactions by many, especially members of the legal fraternity, include why the AGC preferred the indictments in the first place.
With the greatest respect, the reason proffered was viewed by many as a lame-duck excuse reflecting a lackadaisical approach by the AGC in undertaking its solemn prosecutorial undertakings.
Anyway, in performing its constitutional duties, the AGC should realise it represents all of us. In Rosmah’s case, the prosecution’s appeal was in respect of the High Court’s decision that allowed her application to strike out the charges, and invoked its inherent jurisdiction to grant her a full acquittal.
It goes without saying that whenever the AGC decides to launch a criminal prosecution against any offender, it should be ready to defend its prosecutorial decision at all stages of the court’s processes - the trial and appellate stages.
While Rosmah had every right to instruct her lawyer to apply to strike out all charges against her, even before her trial officially commenced, the AGC had a corresponding duty to strenuously object to Rosmah’s application.
Since the High Court judge granted Rosmah's application to strike out all the criminal charges against her, and in turn invoked its inherent jurisdiction to grant her a full acquittal, the AGC owed a duty to the public to put such a drastic decision into appellate scrutiny by seriously pursuing the appeal, come what may!
The withdrawal of the appeal was certainly a no-go. At the very least, the AGC should have tried its best to urge the appellate court to set aside the decision of the High Court in granting Rosmah a full acquittal, much less by relying on the doctrine of inherent jurisdiction.
Based on my considerable trial experience, the court was generally reluctant to exercise its inherent jurisdiction unless the case probably fell into a category of the extreme or “rarest of rare” cases. And I don’t see why the Rosmah case should have fit into that category.
By withdrawing the appeal, the AGC seems to have conceded that the High Court judge was right in dismissing all the criminal charges against Rosmah and, in turn, granting her a full acquittal!
AGC performance in recent corruption cases
So far, the AGC has withdrawn its appeal against the acquittal of Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in a case where he faced 40 graft charges related to the foreign visa system contract, as well as the case entailing 47 charges of criminal breach of trust, graft, and money laundering involving the Yayasan Akalbudi case.
Before that, in November 2024, the AGC failed to produce critical documents to the defence, resulting in the grant of a DNAA favouring former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and former Treasury secretary-general Irwan Serigar.
They faced criminal breach of trust charges for channelling government funds for development projects to pay 1MDB debt.
And in September 2023, the prosecution also missed the deadline to appeal against the acquittal of Najib and former 1MDB president Arul Kanda Kandasamy in the 1MDB audit report tampering case.
While any first prosecutorial screw-up may probably be forgiven (though not forgotten), what we have been witnessing so far is, with due respect, unfortunately, a series of prosecutorial blunders!
Enough is enough! - Mkini
HANIPA MAIDIN is a former deputy minister of law.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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