FORMER chief justice Tun Raus Sharif’s assessment of the rot in the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is disappointing and does not reflect the reality of public perception of the said institution, said a DAP lawmaker.
DAP national legal bureau chairperson Ramkarpal Singh said that as a former chief justice, Raus should have been more candid about the image of MACC which took a beating when leaked audio recordings of a former prime minister and a would-be MACC official in 2016 were made public by former MACC chief Latheefa Koya in 2020 in the presence of current MACC chief Tan Sri Azam Baki.
Speaking at the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Forum 2022. Raus had said, among other things, that events in the last four years have somewhat cast doubt on the independence and impartiality of MACC and that it started with the appointment of an active politician as MACC chief.
This is said to be a possible reference to the appointment of Latheefa Koya who was unilaterally appointed to the role by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 2019.
Latheefa’s appointment to helm the commission courted controversy as it circumvented the Parliamentary Special Select Committee on Public Appointments.
On this matter, Ramkarpal said that Raus’ view seemed to suggest that MACC “enjoyed public confidence before the appointment of the said so-called political appointee”, which he insisted cannot be further from the truth.
“Whether or not the recordings are true, they are certainly damning and ought to have been addressed by Raus, particularly when Azam himself was at the press conference where the recordings were exposed,” said Ramkarpal, who is also the Bukit Gelugor MP.
“Was Azam’s presence an indication that he believed the said recordings to be indeed authentic?”
Ramkarpal went on to note that the biggest disappointment from Raus’ speech was his failure to address the elephant in the room: the recent shares controversy surrounding Azam which has attracted considerable criticism from the public, leading to a serious confidence deficit in MACC.
“One would have thought such incidents would have been addressed or at least commented on by a former CJ at such an esteemed event,” he remarked.
“Raus’ failure to do so and [his act] to pin the blame of the rot in the image of the MACC on the appointment of a political appointee in the last four years, who I assume to be Latheefa during the reign of Pakatan Harapan, suggests his utter ignorance of public perception of the MACC today which is a clear sign of a man detached from reality.”
At the third Malaysia Anti-Corruption Forum on Tuesday (May 24), Raus claimed that certain events over the last four years had brought the independence and impartiality of MACC into question.
This, he said, started with the appointment of an “active politician” as the MACC chief, leading to the widespread perception that actions taken by MACC were politically motivated. – May 25, 2022
