If lawyers can’t get justice from the court, what makes you think you can?

Of late, the Bar Council has been very critical of the government. Let’s see if the Bar Council can defend one of its own members. If not, then Rosli is going to be the ‘example’ that no one — lawyers included — tangles with those who walk in the corridors of power.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Lawyer Rosli Dahlan thought that the law gives him protection whenever he acts for a client. Well, that's at least what the law says with regards to solicitor-client privilege — in theory, that is.

Little did Rosli realise that the rules have changed since the last time he went to law school. You can, in fact, learn more about ‘practical law’ rather that ‘theoretical law’ by opposing those who walk in the corridors of power because for sure you will be spending a lot of time in court facing one fabricated charge or another.

According to Malaysia’s system of ‘practical law’, the goalpost can be moved halfway through the game, as many have since discovered — RPK being one of them — and the goalposts were indeed moved when Rosli chose to act for the Director of the CCD — someone way at the top of the list of the Unholy Trinity of the IGP, the A-G and the MACC, who had the unfortunate fate of being marked as ‘he-who-must-be-destroyed-at-all-costs’.

Little did Rosli realise they had been monitoring his every move. They knew he was the lawyer who had prepared the Affidavits for the CCD Director and the half a dozen police officers in the ‘Tongku’ Goh case — one of the Chinese underworld crime bosses. They knew he helped prepare Deputy Minister Dato’ Johari Baharum’s Affidavit in his report to the then Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. They also knew that he was the same lawyer who advised Idris Jala to brief Abdullah Badawi about Tajuddin Ramli swindling Malaysia’s national airline, MAS, to the tune of RM8 billion.

How did they know all this? Easy, my Deep Throat tells me that they tapped his phone, recorded his phone conversation and meetings, intercepted and diverted his e-mails, and they also planted moles amongst his closest friends, partners and people he trusted. People who worked with him and whom he believed would protect and vouch for him if the chips were to fall were actually police spies.

Hey, did I not tell you that Razak Baginda’s lawyer, Wong Kian Kheong, was once upon a time Rosli’s partner? Furthermore, Dato’ Kumaraendran’s daughter, Rosli’s own counsel in the MACC case, works for S. Sivananthan, the lawyer for Goh Cheng Poh. And Rosli’s classmate, Dato’ Nordin Hassan, is a key member of the A-G’s team that prosecuted Anwar Ibrahim in the Sodomy I and II cases.

I can only describe Rosli’s case as the chicken putting his trust in the fox. Is not the fox’s job to eat the chicken? Rosli has, in not so many words, put the knife in their hands and they are about to slit his throat for being too trusting and for the crime of having a bad judgement of character.

It pains me to have to inform Rosli that my Deep Throat also tells me that some of the people he trusted have fucked him up good and proper. They practically sold him down the river. These are the same people who squeezed Johari’s balls so hard that he revealed Rosli’s name as the lawyer who helped him prepare his Affidavit and confidential report to the Prime Minister.

Dato’ Anuar Zaini, the one time Chairman of Bernama and MAS board member, squealed that it was Rosli who advised Idris Jala to brief Abdullah Badawi about Tajuddin Ramli swindling MAS to the tune of RM8 billion through well-camouflaged party-related transactions. That was when Anuar Zaini, who sat in the special committee that investigated these party-related transactions, discovered that the lawyer’s report also disclosed the conflict of interest involving Ibrahim Badawi who was milking MAS through LSG Skychef, the official caterers for MAS.

Do you now get the picture why Abdullah Badawi was appointed MAS’s Adviser and Idris Jala is now a Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department? This was the same reason Amirsham Aziz was made a Minister as his reward in ensuring that Maybank’s disastrous purchase of Temasik’s interest in the Indonesian bank is kept under wraps.

Against this backdrop, Rosli must either be very brave or very stupid to have acted the way he did for the CCD Director plus got involved in all the cases linked to those who walk in the corridors of power. It’s like swimming blissfully in shark-infested waters. He took no precautions and was oblivious to the fact that he was walking into a minefield. Fearing only retaliation in the 'Tongku' Goh Cheng Poh’s case, he thought he could hide his role by signing off his every action under Dato’ C Vijayakumar’s name. For the other cases, he thought he was doing a good deed and that the government would at least appreciate his professionalism. After all, he was the lawyer who brought back the KPMG accounts, which were held by the Makkassar Police Mafia, and was congratulated by then Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

Rosli counted on the court as his last bastion of justice. He thought all he needed to do was to do the right thing and he would have nothing to worry about. How gravely mistaken he was. Now they know everything — that he was the man behind all these exposes — and they will fix him up for good for that ‘crime’.

The Unholy Trinity decided that Rosli needed to be brought down. He knows too much and what he did damaged the syndicate. There was too much at stake and they were not about to allow Rosli to spoil their little egg nest. For acting for the Director of the CCD, the A-G instructed his officers to do an illegal search on his bank accounts but unfortunately found nothing. The ACA (now MACC) then served him a notice demanding that he declare his assets.

Before that, however, they leaked information to the media that the Director of the CCD was being investigated for amassing wealth worth RM27 million. Rosli then prepared a detailed set of accounts to prove that the allegations were hogwash. They then spun another story that since the money was not with the CCD Director then the money must be in the lawyer’s pocket. And that was when they demanded that Rosli declare his personal assets — a classic case of a Red Herring.

In Rosli’s mind, why should he be asked to declare his assets? He is not a government servant. He does no work for the government, except when he gave free service to the CCD and the Deputy Minister when the A-G refused to prepare their Affidavits. So he sent the MACC DPP letter after letter to explain that they had no grounds to demand that he declare his assets. Well, at least the law says that only relatives and associates can be served with such a notice. And he was neither. He was merely a lawyer acting for a client. And the law is also very specific about the category of people who can be classified as relatives and associates — and a lawyer is not one of them.

So Rosli held his ground. He thought since the law was behind him they would not dare touch him and even if they did the courts would ensure justice and would protect him. That is what most Malaysians would think. But this is Malaysia. And in Malaysia things are done differently. Since when does the A-G care about the law? Not only did the MACC arrest Rosli and assaulted him in the process — in full view of his entire office — they also charged him for daring to challenge their authority. The hapless Rosli had to spend the eve of Hari Raya Haji in the lockup in Putrajaya, absolutely puzzled as to what went wrong and what crime he had committed.

And what did he do? Still believing in the system, he lodged a police report as if expecting the police to protect him against the MACC. He then filed a court action against the MACC’s abuse of the system in sending him the illegal notice. The only problem was that this process called Judicial Review requires that he first obtain leave of court before he can file an action against the government and the government officers who had abused the system and their powers. What? Yes, to sue the government for the abuses committed against you, you actually need permission from the court. If the court says no, then your complaint gets thrown into the wastepaper basket.  What kind of stupid law is that? Well, haven’t you heard the saying: the law is an ass?

To teach Rosli a good lesson he will never forget, they put the useless Judge, Kadir Musa, in charge of the case because they knew Kadir would be too bloody lazy to hear it.  Furthermore, they could also use the many complaints against Kadir to squeeze his balls in coming out with a decision the way they want it. So Kadir played ball and sat on Rosli’s case for a good two years from 2007 until 2009. The case never saw the light of day.

When Kadir discovered that his boss was going to sack him anyway, he decided to hear Rosli’s case and then ruled against the Unholy Trinity. That was when Chief Justice Zaki Tun Azmi removed the case from Kadir’s court and then announced that two Judges are going to be sacked for inefficiency — the first is Kadir and the other is Justice Idris Rapie. They then put a very junior judge, Judicial Commissioner Alizatul Khair, in charge of the case.

JC Alizatul, seeing what had happened to Kadir, became worried that she would not be confirmed as a judge if she decided to grant Rosli permission to sue the MACC and the government. She knew that Musa Hassan’s extension as the IGP for another year — despite the damning SD from his ADC — was a clear signal that no one should dare decide against the government. So, on 11 July 2009, in the month of Ramadhan, exactly two years from the time Rosli was assaulted and arrested by the MACC, JC Alizatul decided to throw the application for permission to sue the MACC for their abuses into the wastepaper basket.

My sources at the courts tell me they will now fix Rosli up good and proper.  Already, they have set up a special Sessions Court  (Court 10) for MACC cases with a special Sessions Judge, Bakar Katar, appointed to sit and to ensure that MACC does not lose any more cases after the recent bad publicity it has been subjected to. Fox Communications, the PR agency recommended by Musa Hassan, advised Hishammuddin and the government that they needed to boost the MACC’s image. What better opportunity than Rosli’s case?

Of late, the Bar Council has been very critical of the government. Let’s see if the Bar Council can defend one of its own members. If not, then Rosli is going to be the ‘example’ that no one — lawyers included — tangles with those who walk in the corridors of power.

I can almost anticipate what will happen to Rosli. On Monday, 14th September 2009, he will be hauled before this special court. They will then rush through a hearing date, and as swiftly will find him guilty. And there is nothing that the Bar Council can do about it.

If lawyers can’t get justice from the court, what makes you think you can?