Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Another big blow to judicial integrity... excuse not good enough!!


"A computer virus wiped out several of the recently-typed proceeding notes pertaining to migrant workers' activist Irene Fernandez's Kuala Lumpur High Court appeal, resulting in the need for that particular volume of notes to be re-typed".
"The other reason for the delay - to what has already been dubbed ‘the longest trial in Malaysian history' - was the lack of clerical staff to type out the proceedings notes".

Here's something to jolt some memory concerning Irene Fenandez's case:
"In 1995, Fernandez published a report on the abuse of migrant workers, cataloguing the malnutrition, physical and sexual abuse and the appalling conditions the workers endure, and set out the facts about the detention camps where they end up and where many of them die. The research included interviews with as many as 300 migrant workers. The embarrassed government admitted that 46 people had died of various medical conditions in their detention centres, but, in March 1996, Fernandez was arrested at home and charged with ‘maliciously publishing false news’. Her trial became the longest in Malaysian history and many of the witnesses she was relying on were deported before she could make her defence. In 2003 she was finally found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison, having by then appeared in court more than 300 times. She is currently on bail pending an appeal. While on bail, her passport is confiscated and she is banned from standing for election. During the trial, the offices of Tenaganita were bugged and raided twice by government officers. The funds for their half-way house for women and children with HIV were stopped.
Despite harassment and intimidation Fernandez has courageously refused to limit her work or blunt her message, even though the prison term hangs over her head. She has never used or advocated violence and has always worked in an open and legal way. She was therefore a prime candidate for adoption by Amnesty International, which has been unequivocal in its support for her".

Only God knows what Mahathir and his gang did to this case. It took SEVEN long years to finally convict someone who was then merely telling the truth from the ground and a further FIVE years to listen her Appeal and now, it is further pushed forward to Sept 10th on those two lame reasons listed in the beginning of this post. So much for Integrity and Credibility.

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