Zahid's NFA: AGC's justification raises suspicions

 

 The Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4 Center) and the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih) are appalled by Attorney-General’s Chambers’ (AGC) statement released on Jan 8.

It purportedly justified its decision to classify Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s Yayasan Akalbudi case as requiring no further action (NFA).

This comes after the decision to discontinue the prosecution against Zahid for 47 charges of criminal breach of trust, bribery, and money laundering in 2023, resulting in Zahid being granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) despite having been ordered to enter his defence at that point.

It is important to note that the decision to discontinue the prosecution against Zahid was made after a prima facie case had been established against him, meaning that the prosecution had already proved through credible evidence each ingredient of the offences Zahid was charged with, which would warrant a conviction if unrebutted or unexplained.

In other words, the prosecution had already proved its case against Zahid at this stage.

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi

At the time, the explanation given by deputy public prosecutor Dusuki Mokhtar (who is now the attorney-general) was that Zahid raised new matters in his letters of representation to the AGC, which needed to be investigated.

Now it seems that, in the view of the AGC, these new matters have somehow negated the evidence that was adduced in court by the prosecutors themselves.

In the media statement released by the AGC, it is stated that upon investigations into the totality of matters and new evidence, there is “insufficient evidence” to sustain the continuation of prosecution for the 47 charges.

How is this possible, given that the prosecution had already proven their case against Zahid in a court of law for the 47 charges?

At the time the DNAA was sought, it was the turn of the defence to rebut the prosecution’s case. No mention of this aspect can be found in the AGC’s statement, which clearly calls into question the veracity of these so-called “investigations”.

Integrity of criminal justice system

Once again, this situation leads to public doubt in the integrity of the criminal justice system and, in particular, the ability of prosecutors to carry out their mandate effectively.

Long-standing calls for the separation of the offices of the attorney-general and public prosecutor have led to commitments by the Madani administration to table the necessary constitutional amendments this year.

This is vital to limit the risk of direct influence from the prime minister on the attorney-general, whose tenure is dependent on the former.

However, an additional matter of concern is the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, or more specifically, the overly broad nature of such discretion.

Article 145(3) of the Federal Constitution states that the attorney-general “shall have power, exercisable at his discretion, to institute, conduct or discontinue any proceedings for an offence”.

This general lack of limitation creates situations like this, where unjustifiable decisions are made in deciding whether or not to prosecute someone.

Ensuring justice is upheld

We hold that this is not an acceptable state of affairs in any functioning democracy - prosecutors must be subject to proportionate and necessary limits on their powers and discretion to ensure justice is upheld, such as through the introduction of prosecutorial guidelines like the UK’s Code for Crown Prosecutors or the Australian Prosecution Policy of the Commonwealth.

Therefore, we urge the AGC to respond specifically to the issue of having previously proven a prima facie case against Zahid in the Yayasan Akalbudi case, and how that squares with their current position that there is insufficient evidence to continue prosecution.

We also urge the Madani government to draft and publish clear and just prosecutorial guidelines to steer the conduct and decision-making process of prosecutors in a fair and uniform manner, in tandem with the efforts to separate the attorney-general and public prosecutor offices. - Mkini

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This statement was jointly issued by C4 CENTER and BERSIH.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.