Project Stability and Accountability for Malaysia (Projek Sama) notes the Attorney General’s Chambers media release on 6 November, which calls for a temporary suspension of Najib Razak’s home detention pending further clarification on the interpretation of the conditional pardon order.
However, fundamental questions remain:
Is there a customised law on home detention for 1MDB convict Najib Razak, when Parliament has yet to pass any law on home detention?
Has Malaysia truly become a ‘dua darjat’ society, with one set of rules for a VVIP criminal with a legal fast-track lane back to his mansion-prison, and another for the 31 million Malaysian citizens, who would have to serve prison terms if sentenced by a court?
Projek Sama urges Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to affirm the rule of law and the wider constitutional framework on which our system rests. That framework is a constitutional monarchy grounded in parliamentary democracy, in which the exercise of every power is anchored in law and answerable to the people.
- Sign up for Aliran's free daily email updates or weekly newsletters or both
- Make a one-off donation to Persatuan Aliran Kesedaran Negara (ALIRAN), Maybank a/c 507246118995 or CIMB a/c 8004240948
- Make a pledge or schedule an auto donation to Aliran every month or every quarter
- Become an Aliran member
To that end, the government should heed the public demand to disclose:
- The full minutes of the Federal Territories Pardons Board meeting on Najib’s home detention
- The written opinion of Attorney General Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar
- The position taken by Federal Territories Minister Hannah Yeoh
- Any legal or regulatory instruments governing Najib’s confinement until 23 August 2028, including the standard operating procedure
As the elected head of government, Anwar has a duty to honour the electoral promise that brought him to office: to fight corruption without fear or favour.
Reluctance to disclose these documents will erode the people’s confidence in the rule of law and in parliamentary democracy itself.
It will also undermine the international community’s confidence in Malaysia’s commitment to institutional reform and good governance, which the government has worked hard to project abroad.
Under the ‘Madani’ banner, Anwar Ibrahim and his coalition partners, including Umno, invite the people to aspire to a civil and rules-based society like Madinah under the leadership of Prophet Muhammad. Could such tailor-made leniency for Najib have happened in the egalitarian Madinah of that time?
Malaysia does not belong to one man or one family. The people deserve to know what laws and rules apply to everyone, and what exceptions and exemptions have been made for a special someone. They deserve to know who makes what decisions and on what grounds.
We welcome DAP secretary general Anthony Loke’s resignation as transport minister to register his party’s disagreement with Najib’s home detention. Najib’s mega-corruption is obscene, and leniency towards him – and the cruelty it inflicts on the people – must not be accepted as business as usual.
The public funds involved in Najib’s convicted cases, SRC and 1MDB, alone total RM2.7bn. His two other cases, for which he has been granted a ‘discharge not amounting to acquittal’, involved RM6.6bn (Ipic) and RM27m (SRC2).
With the four cases combined, the total of RM9.0bn involved is enough to build 93 new schools or 34 new hospital blocks. If a person earns a salary of RM3,000 a month, he or she would have to work for 250,000 years to earn RM9.0bn.
That a mega-corruption convict could be hailed as a hero, with RM50m raised to free him, underlines two troubling realities in Malaysia.
First, as a society, we have lost our collective sense of shame and our moral compass, despite our emphasis on religious values.
Second, partisanship has run so deep that we cannot find common ground to defend the rule of law and parliamentary democracy.
Fortunately, all is not lost. While some Umno princelings treat past contributions as a licence to loot public funds, and others dismiss judicial convictions as “selective prosecution”, we still have sober and courageous young people, like the University of Malaya economics student Ummi Umairah Bakhit, 23, who publicly criticised the RM50m fundraising campaign for Najib at Umno’s World Trade Centre.
We must return to the moral values of Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism and Western civilisation to rebuild decency in our society. For example, Islam reminds us that public office is a sacred trust that becomes a heavy burden if betrayed.
We must build closer ties between communities, so that integrity and the public interest triumph over identity politics in elections in Malacca, Sarawak and nationwide.
Projek Sama calls on all Malaysians to embrace a culture that rejects corruption and knows shame.
We must unite across political divides to defend the rule of law, protect parliamentary democracy, and ensure that justice applies equally to everyone in Malaysia, without fear or favour. – Projek Sama
AGENDA RAKYAT - Lima perkara utama
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
