How Augustine Paul Betrayed Justice
Klorm
http://www.geocities.com/seachange_2000/index.htm
Augustine Paul: And Justice Lay Dying…
In the charged atmosphere of a packed courtroom, with the eyes of the
world trained on her, justice lay dying from the callous betrayal of a
renegade keeper sworn to uphold and protect her.
Augustine Paul was a judge with a mission – to convict Anwar Ibrahim.
He had been handpicked and elevated from junior judge to High Court
judge specially to hear Anwar’s corruption case. In the end he did not
disappoint his political masters, he gave the guilty verdict they
demanded and handed down the savage sentence that had been
pre-determined by Mahathir. But how do you convict a man when the
weight of evidence point to his innocence and the prosecution’s case is
as flimsy as a house of cards? There was only one way…to betray justice
in the most cavalier manner. In reaching his inevitable verdict he had
to trample over truth, justice and legal jurisprudence in the crudest
possible manner. He ran a banal kangaroo court which was so blatantly
biased that it will forever shame the nation in the eyes of the world.
Unlike Ariffin Jaka presiding over Anwar’s sodomy trial, Augustine Paul
had no finesse nor artfulness in conducting the mock trial. He
blatantly tied the hands of the defense team but allowed astonishing
leeway to the prosecution. Political conspiracy was rejected as
"fanciful" although Anwar was a politician who had fallen from grace
with the Prime Minister. This is like saying that it is fanciful to
suppose that a man had fallen down the steps when he is found groaning
in pain at the bottom of a flight of wet and slippery steps. But this
is exactly what this dirty judge had been insisting to the defense team.
On the matter of evidence, he brusquely brushed aside material evidence
and important witnesses presented by the defense but allowed the
prosecution to pull in a soiled mattress into court as if the name of
persons using it was inscribed there. He dismissed evidence from direct
witnesses who testified in favour of Anwar as hearsay but allowed
double hearsay evidence from the prosecution. Defense lawyers were
threatened with contempt of court for pursuing lines of evidence
uncomfortable to the prosecution. Lawyer Zainur Zakaria was jailed for
presenting a sworn affidavit that the Attorney-General’s office had
conspired to browbeat Datuk Nallakarupan to falsely testify against
Anwar. Does contempt of court extend to upholding the honour of the
prosecution team?
If a man is accused of taking illegal steps to cover up something he
had done, shouldn’t the court establish beyond reasonable doubt that he
had really committed the crimes or actions that he was purported to
have tried to cover up? But Augustine Paul was not interested in
finding out the truth, he was hell bent on convicting Anwar. He allowed
the prosecution to amend the charges at a late stage in the trial to
relieve them of having to prove that Anwar committed sodomy and
adultery. It was a grave miscarriage of justice that goes against
natural justice and common sense. You cannot convict a man of trying to
cover up a crime if you cannot prove that he has committed the crime.
But an renegade judge like Paul would say that it was irrelevant by
adopting a highly blinkered view. An easy to understand account of how
judge Augustine Paul conducted his court may be this:
A man is on trial for punching another man. He was accused of doing so
in an attempt to prevent embarrassing disclosure of a sexual nature
about himself.
Defense: Your honour, we would like to submit evidence that Mr. A acted
in self-defense when he punched Mr X.
Judge: Indeed, the notion that he acted in self-defense is fanciful. I
forbid this line of defense.
Defense: We will call many witnesses whose testimonies will show that
my client is not guilty of any wrong-doing and in fact acted very
reasonably under the circumstances.
Judge: You must clear your witnesses with me before you call them. Give
me a summary of what they are going to testify and I will decide
whether they are relevant or not.
Defense: Your honour, we want to call two witnesses who can testify
that they saw Mr. X threatening Mr. A with a an iron rod.
Judge: I disallow these witnesses. Their evidence is irrelevant. The
accused is on trial for punching a man. I only want to establish
whether he landed the blow or not.
Defense: We have a witness who can testify that he heard Mr. X
threatening to harm my client a week before the incident.
Judge: This is hearsay. Nobody can verify what he heard.
Defense: We would like to submit a taped evidence of the exchange.
Judge: I disallow the taped evidence. We cannot be sure the voices are
those of the defendant and the plaintiff.
Prosecution: Your honour, we will call witnesses to testify that the
accused was a sexual pervert who had many affairs with men and women.
Judge: This is very relevant evidence. Please proceed.
Prosecution: We hereby tender a box of condoms found in the defendant’s
house.
Judge: This is important evidence. It should be displayed in court for
all to see.
Prosecution: We present our main witness who will testify that Mr A.
assaulted a defenseless and helpless man without any provocation.
Defense: Your honour, we have copies of a signed agreement between the
plaintiff and his main witness which reveals a conspiracy to give false
evidence.
Judge: How dare you! You will withdraw the document and apologize to
the plaintiff or I will jail you for contempt of court.
Prosecution: Your honour, we apply to amend the charges against the
accused to "punching a man" instead of "punching a man to prevent
embarrassing disclosure of a sexual nature".
Defense: I object! The prosecution has submitted all sort of
unsubstantiated allegations about my client’s character and sexual
indiscretions. We must be given the right to cross-examine and refute
the allegations.
Judge: The amendment is allowed in the interest of justice. As I’ve
said, the only point of contention is whether he punched the plaintiff
or not. The court is not interested in why he did it or the
circumstances surrounding the act.
Defense: We cannot refute that he did punched the plaintiff but we
contend that he acted in self….
Judge: This is irrelevant! If you pursue this line of defense I will
jail you for contempt of court.
Judge: After carefully examining the evidence before me, I pronounce
the defendant guilty.
Defense: Your honour, my client will not mitigate because he maintains
his innocence. Mr. X was not badly hurt. He did not even deem it
necessary seek medical treatment. His sentence should merit only a fine.
Judge: Punching a man is a serious offence. I must uphold justice as I
am answerable to God. I hereby sentence you to 6 years jail.
Politican: He was convicted in a public trial by an independent court.
He had the best team of lawyers to defend him.
Politician’s Lapdog: The people should accept the judgement of the
court. The judgement ran to 300 pages
If the proceedings of this imaginary trial sicken you, you will be no
less revolted to know that this was essentially what occurred in
Anwar’s trial. Throughout this banal mockery of justice, Augustine Paul
sought to protect his political masters from embarrassment. Evidence
from defense witnesses were cut off with cries of "irrelevant!" and
parts of the trial were blacked out from the press in order to protect
Mahathir and his band of conspirators. Paul certainly danced to their
political tune. He bent over backwards to comply to their wishes and in
his eagerness to please them he turned the trial into a grotesque
political circus.
At the end of this crude parody of justice, this monster judge handed
down a savage sentence of 6 years which does not include the 6 months
that Anwar had been in remand. Even if Anwar was guilty of the charges,
how can this savage sentence be justified for a case of technical
corruption in which no money, property or shares was involved and
nobody had been hurt? If a man who tried to clear his name from
malicious slanderers had overstepped his bounds then the proper
sentence should be a fine or a very light custody sentence but not six
and a half years in the slammer. Only recently a Datuk whom the judge
ruled had willfully run over his wife causing her death had been given
six months jail so the contrast could not be greater. But Augustine
Paul was merely a puppet of a vengeful Mahathir who wanted to finish
off Anwar politically.
What would prompt a man to subvert all his internal principles and
morals and knowingly send an innocent man to jail? Is money and power
enough? It appears that Augustine Paul was not even offered those, he
seemed to have sold his soul for a pittance. For a mere promotion to
High Court judge he was willing to bludgeon justice and blacken his
name until it descended into a cesspool of slime and muck. He sold the
morality of his country away for a mere career. Among his peers, he has
become a pariah, a crooked judge who mangled the justice he was
supposed to uphold. His children are shamed and future descendents of
Augustine Paul will cringe in embarrassment when his name is mentioned.
Perhaps his name will be synonymous with a kangaroo court and people
will say, "it was an Augustine Court" when they want to convey their
disgust for an unfair trial.
Although Augustine Paul had obeyed the wishes of his political masters,
what has he accomplished for them? He has put away Mahathir’s political
enemy for a long time but the clumsy trial only serves to re-affirmed
and highlight the subservience of the judiciary. The impression both
inside and outside the country that it was a deeply flawed political
trial is widespread in the minds of the public. Even the United States
State Department sharply criticized the Anwar trial as an example of
human rights abuses in Malaysia. One does not need to be a legal expert
to know that justice had been mangled and trampled and Augustine Paul
was Mahathir’s puppet judge who dragged the judiciary to new lows.
Mahathir’s intention to use Anwar’s conviction to villify him and erode
his support base backfires. Indeed the trial has dirtied Mahathir as
much as his puppet judge. Mahathir’s legacy has been tainted but for
Augustine Paul we reserve our utmost contempt for a man who betrayed
justice in the name of dispensing justice.
A. Jaka
From Seachange Malaysia
http://www.geocities.com/seachange_2000/index.htm
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