Moderator’s note : I’m probably going to get whacked for this one, but that’s never stopped me before.
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It would be interesting to know the proportion of police reports of alleged sex-related crimes that get NFA’ed ( no further action ) and those that culminate in charges being preferred against the alleged sex offender.
It would also be interesting to know the average number of police man-hours that are invested in investigating police reports of alleged sex-related crimes.
Take a police report of rape.
As I understand it, if there has been such a lapse of time between the alleged rape and the lodging of the report, so that the medical examination turns up little forensic evidence to corroborate the complaint, such a case will most likely be NFA’ed.
Now, what if the report is made very close in time to the alleged rape and the medical examination establishes that there is no evidence of penetration?
NFA?
Or in such a case, does the investigating officer say, “Oh, go on, let’s probe a little further and see what gives”?
And, as I’ve always understood, in these sort of cases, given the stigma attached to the nature of the allegation, both for the complainant and the alleged perpetrator, from the time a report is made, right through the investigations and until a formal charge is preferred in court after the investigation satisfies the prosecutors that a charge is warranted, the identity of both the complainant and the alleged perpetrator is kept under wraps.
And even after the charge is preferred in court, the complainant’s identity remains withheld.
Saiful’s complaint, it would seem, departed from the norm, in this regard.
Only two parties knew of Saiful’s police report at the time the report was made.
Saiful and the police.
One of these two leaked the fact of the police report to the media the very day that the report was lodged.
This leak is the first hint of the conspiracy that Anwar and his team of lawyers keep harping about.
The time spent in investigating Saiful’s complaint, if significantly more than the average number of man-hours expanded by the police in investigating other sex-related offences generally, and, more specifically, other reports alleging sodomy, may also be indicative of a ‘get him’ state of mind rather than a ‘just another case’ attitude on the part of the investigating team, lending further credence to the allegation of conspiracy.
Like many of you, I, too, think there is substance in the allegation of conspiracy.
Not just for the two reasons I have mentioned here.
Many, many more.
The former Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Paul Martin has also joined the chorus of many foreigners in castigating this latest charge against Anwar as being politically motivated and calling for the same to be dropped. You can read his rationale HERE.
I, however, do not agree that the charge be dropped.
The trial, in my view, must go on.
Article 8(1) of the Federal Constitution stipulates that “All persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law”.
Apply this provision to the matter at hand.
There is an accuser and an accused.
Saiful and Anwar.
Both are equal before the law.
And both are equally entitled to the protection of the law.
Saiful, upon lodging his police report, was entitled to the fullest due process in having that complaint investigated.
The police say they did a thorough investigation.
The AG’s Chambers, having studied the investigation papers, have preferred the charge against Anwar.
No NFA.
The imputation of this is that the investigation has borne evidence that warrants a charge.
In fact, the prosecution, in its opening statement, has alluded to semen samples that will prove its case.
Anwar has claimed trial.
Anwar is disputing the prosecution’s contention.
Anwar alleges a conspiracy in the preferring of these charges.
The conspiracy allegation imputes complicity between the police, the AG’s chambers and even the complainant.
Anwar has gone further.
He implicates the prime minster in this conspiracy.
Both the prosecution and the defence have made serious allegations.
The stage has been set.
Both sides have assembled their respective expert witnesses.
The arbiter, one Justice Zabidin Mohd Diah, who took an oath to uphold, defend and preserve the Constitution and to discharge his judicial duties to the best of his ability, will pronounce Anwar’s innocence or guilt.
And in that process, he may either vindicate or condemn Anwar’s alleged conspiracy theory.
Have not things gone too far to now drop the charge, as urged by so many?
I think there are three reasons why the trial must go on.
First, to now pull the plug on the trial would, in my view, be to do a great injustice to Anwar.
In a post entitled “Look justice in the eye and say ‘Yes, try me’, or forever hold your peace”, I wrote :
“One of the worst things that could happen to someone, especially a very public figure, is to be made the subject of public speculation of some great misdeed, and yet not be afforded the forum to vindicate oneself.
…Unless you were in fact implicated in this horrible crime, in which case you would be grateful for the ‘NFA’. In fact, you would probably pay big time to have the matter ‘NFA’ed.
If, however, you were clean as a whistle and were being maligned by certain individuals with a hidden agenda and these individuals appeared to be successfully spinning your guilt in public space, you would want to be prosecuted so that you would have the very public forum of the courts to clear your name”.
This, of course, pre-supposes an unquestioning and well-founded public confidence in our courts and the system of administration if justice.
Which, sadly, is not the case.
Second, to drop the charges now would also be unfair to Saiful.
He is the complainant. His complaint has been investigated. Based on that investigation, a charge has been preferred. He is entitled to have his day in court.
Due process demands it.
In truth, this trial is no longer about Anwar or Saiful.
It is our system of administration of justice that is on trial.
And we, the rakyat, must sit in judgment of that system.
We will watch the evidence of the prosecution as it unfolds.
We will watch as defence counsel tests and challenges the evidence of the prosecution.
We will watch as the defence proffers evidence, if any, to support its conspiracy allegation.
And we will scrutinise every adjudication of Justice Zabidin on that evidence.
That system of administration of justice, established under the Constitution, represents the collective duty and responsibility of us, the rakyat, owed both to Saiful and Anwar, to see that justice is done in this matter.
Should we judge that system to have failed either one, we must recognise the collective failure of this generation and those before us of failing to defend that system when the judiciary came under attack in 1987 – 1988, when appointments to the bench were confined to men and women who could be compromised and who no longer dispensed justice, but dispensed with the same, and when the office of the Attorney General, increasingly, was reserved for the spineless and those devoid of integrity and conscience.
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