Is PH government willing to condone the obnoxious laws?
Yesterday the Kuala Lumpur High Court denied bail for Gadek assemblyperson and Melaka state executive councillor G. Saminathan.
Judicial a Commissioner Ahmad Sharir Mohd Salleh decided to stick to Section 388 of the Criminal Procedure Code to deny bail for Saminathan.
Ahmad Sharir said that since he was bound by the punishment meted out in the CPC of the maximum penalty of death or life imprisonment, he was legally bound to reject the bail.
Since the offences committed by Saminathan was linked to the LTTE, a terrorist organisation gazetted by the Ministry of Home Affairs, there was no reason for him to question the validity of the Minister’s gazette that listed it as a terrorist organisation.
There was much hope that given the earlier High Court judgement by judge Mohamad Nazlan that stipulated that it was within the jurisdiction of the courts to give bail, that Saminathan might be freed.
This decision gave confidence to the family members of those detained under Sosma of the possibility of earlier release under bail.
Before this landmark judgement, it was not even possible to think of bail for those charged under Sosma.
However, in the case of Saminathan, the Ahmed Shahrir made no reference to the earlier high court decision nor did he makes any reference to Sosma.
There was no mention of the word Sosma in the judgement denying bail at all.
His focus was on the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) which provides a maximum punishment of death or life imprisonment for those charged under Section 388 of CPC.
Thus, under the CPC there is no bail because the Offences committed was related to links with the LTTE that was gazetted as the terrorist organisation by the Minister of Home Affairs.
Although Ahmad Sharir made references to the fact that the LTTE might be a defunct organisation in other countries but the fact that it was gazetted as a terrorist organisation was suffice for him to consider it as terrorist outfit.
He said it was up to the policy makers to consider whether an organisation should be gazetted or de-gazetted. It was not certainly up to the court.
Ahmad Sharir touched on two related points to come to his judgement in denying the bail.
First, he said that since the CPC prescribed extreme punishment for terrorist offences, death or life imprisonment, these were non-bailable offences.
Second, Saminathan was arrested for terrorist activities, linked to the LTTE, a gazetted terrorist organisation, he had no choice but to deny the bail.
It is strange that there have been cases charged under the Penal Code but allowed bail including those charged with murder.
But Saminathan is being treated worse than a murderer for the mere allegation of possession of some materials linking him to the long gone LTTE.
In the ultimate sense, it is not about the court judgement or Sosma but whether PH government is willing to tolerate and condone the obnoxious laws in the country, that were supposed to have been removed per the manifesto.
P Ramasamy is the deputy chief minister II of Penang
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of The Leaders Online
