52 years on and common sense is the least common of all

ARCHIVES 2009

By MT Webmaster On Aug 24, 2009

By DAVID D. MATHEW/MySinchew

LAST week I watched the superb new movie District 9, which tells the tale of an alien ship landing in Johannesburg. Instead of finding hostiles, the ship contained malnourished aliens who were the last survivors of their home world. An alien refugee camp was then set up in a place known as District 9 while the world argued about the next course of action.

The thing is halfway through the movie I received a message from a friend which went "Dude, Muhyiddin equates Bar Council fines to parking tickets."

I was immediately reminded of the classic Calvin & Hobbes quote about how the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Given the silly shenanigans that have been occurring in this country of late, we can be sure that E.T. would not be contacting us to wish the country a happy 52nd birthday next week. We also can be sure that no aliens, refugees or otherwise, are going to set up camp in Merdeka Square anytime soon.

Upon landing, they may immediately be gassed and then arrested for illegal assembly. Their little alien children would live in constant doubt as to whether English or Bahasa would be thought in schools given the flip-flop nature of our education policy.

They may be pleased to note however that the race identification column in most official documents will now be removed. No need to write "alien" in every single official document. Sadly however, names such as Mork, Yoda, Ming the Merciless and Commander Spock will give the secret away.

Anyway, everything else from political parties to economic and education policies remains race based so that will be a concern.

Another area of concern will of course be where there is a mysterious death in the alien community. The human forensic expert on the scene will have failed to test for fingerprints because of the lack of proper equipment. He also would simply expect someone else to do his job or even remain ignorant as to whether his job needs to be done at all.

By the way, Grissom from CSI Las Vegas would be squirming in his seat should he have been observing the Teoh Beng Hock inquiry thus far.

Back to the aliens. Worse still, they will surely not be able to comprehend the daft antics of our politicians and bizarre nature of our politics where youth means being below 40 or 45 years of age and the fact of reparation after the guilty act means innocence in the first place.

Common sense is truly the least common of all.

This brings me nicely to the Deputy Prime Minister making light of disciplinary action taken by the Bar Council's Disciplinary Board against former practising lawyer and current Barisan National candidate for Permatang Pasir Rohaizat Othman.

The Disciplinary Board is an independent body established statutorily by the Legal Profession Act 1976 to act on public complaints of misconduct against advocates and solicitors. All advocates and solicitors are subject, for the purposes of all disciplinary actions, to the control of the Disciplinary Board. Any advocate and solicitor found guilty of any misconduct is liable to be struck off the Roll.

Lawyers are stakeholders in the administration of justice and they offer services to the public at large which would include, for example, having to retain client monies in the legal firm's client's account. Lawyers are thus to be held to the highest possible standards of integrity and professional conduct.

According to the Secretary of the Malaysian Bar, the complaint against Rohaizat was that he had failed to refund almost RM 161,000 to the complainant after a particular transaction was aborted. The Disciplinary Board comprising members of the profession found Rohaizat guilty of this complaint.

The legal profession is a self regulating body and disciplinary complaints are handled within the profession because it is the profession itself that best understands what is at play.

In any event, Rohaizat then exercised his statutory right of appeal to the High Court but the appeal was dismissed.

It was therefore wrong for the Deputy Prime Minister to nonchalantly brush away the Disciplinary Board's decision and to assert that the Bar Council had an agenda behind what transpired.

The Disciplinary Board carried out its statutory duties and nothing more. No amount of finger pointing at the other partners of Rohaizat's law firm or the Bar Council can take away the fact that Barisan Nasional messed up big time in its candidate selection process. Elections are glass house affairs and a single crack or even the threat of a crack can cost one party the majority vote.

And whichever way this story is spun, Rohaizat is no hero as the Bar Council has confirmed that the finding of misconduct is personal to Rohaizat.

Speaking of heroes, Samy Vellu must surely be a hero in Pakatan Rakyat's eyes. It must have been with great joy that members of the Pakatan Rakyat leadership read the news that Samy Vellu intends to stay on as President of the MIC until 2015.

Samy says he was only joking but the joke is on him and on the party which looks doomed unless new faces take the helm and new blood is injected. A party with the same leader for over 30 years will sink in an era where the rallying cry for change and fresh ideas is the norm of the day and can even win you the Presidency of the United States.

It is a truly amazing fact that this country is 52 years old and Samy Vellu has been President of the MIC for 30 years out of that.

In any event, once you have the dubious honour of starring in a Facebook group named "Malaysians against Dato' Seri Samy Vellu Sangalimuthu" perhaps it is time to pack your bags and hand over the reins.

So 52 years on, intelligent life out there will surely not be contacting us for many obvious reasons. Perhaps after the next half century things may change. Something tells me that Samy Vellu may just still be around for that momentous occasion.