Reminder for AG: No impunity for civil servants

Blogger says Apandi must explain 1MDB decision, recalls High Court judge's remarks about civil servants

KUALA LUMPUR: The Attorney-General, Apandi Ali, who is a former judge of the Federal Court, was reminded today of the limits of civil service immunity in the exercise of their power.

Lawyer-blogger Art Harun, in an article about 1Malaysia Development Bhd, said the Attorney-General had made a perplexing decision not to begin criminal proceedings over wrongdoings in 1MDB, as recommended by Bank Negara and even after the Bank had asked for a review of his decision not to prosecute.

Art said Apandi had a duty to explain himself.

“Clearly his decision in this case, where the investigative authority has deemed it fit to even list out the breaches of the Exchange Control Act publicly, demands scrutiny from the public and the Parliament. He must answer this mystery and explain himself,” Art wrote.

“The duty to explain can’t be more defined when the investigating authority, after a full and thorough investigation, strongly recommends that charges be filed, not once, but twice and yet the Attorney-General had found it fit to not follow such recommendations,” he wrote.

He reminded the Attorney-General, as a former judge of the Federal Court, that, as with any other public servant, no one was above the law or unanswerable to the country and quoted a High Court decision that civil servants were not immune from legal scrutiny.

Apandi should also be reminded of his oath of office and not allow the oath to be reduced to a mere formality to be forgotten as soon as it is uttered, Art said and approvingly quoted a “brave decision” by High Court judge Vazeer Alam in a case brought by lawyer Rosli Dahlan against the Attorney-General and 11 others.

The judge had said that “absolute immunity for public servants has no place in a progressive democratic society” and was anathema to the modern notions of accountability”.

Art noted that Bank Negara had broken with tradition by making a “very public statement of its obvious disagreement and disenchantment with the Attorney-General” over alleged exchange control breaches by 1MDB.

The Bank’s statement clearly implied that it has done everything expected of it, and that the Attorney- General was solely responsible deciding not to charge anyone.

Art said the Attorney-General’s perplexing decision made a mockery of the central bank’s good work as an investigative authority.