FAC News - Saturday, April 19, 2003 11:56 AM

The Anwar appeal decision: a day of utter confusion

The Kuala Lumpur Appeal Court convened at 10.00am on Friday, 18 April 2003, to deliver its decision on Anwar Ibrahim’s and his adopted brother’s appeal against their sodomy conviction.

Pajan Singh Gill, heading the three-member panel of judges, then told the court they would only be delivering their oral judgment.

“We feel that we should be slow to interrupt the finding of facts by the trial judge who had the advantage of assessing the demeanour of the witnesses throughout the proceedings. We therefore unanimously dismiss both appeals,” said Pajan in his most brief oral judgment.

The court also revoked Sukma’s bail and ruled that his sentence was to commence immediately.

And with that the proceeding ended.

The defence then requested a stay of execution to enable it to appeal to a higher court, the Federal Court, and for bail to be considered.

“With due respect, we cannot accept the court’s decision. We are now making an oral application in respect to bail, and would like an hour to get the relevant precedents to support our arguments. The court has to hear them today and make a decision," said Karpal Singh, one of Anwar Ibrahim’s lawyers.

Pajan then told Karpal to file a formal application but Karpal insisted that the court accept their oral application and hear their arguments that same day.

Pajan replied that they needed fifteen minutes to consider the matter and the judges all left the courtroom.

Twenty minutes later, the court was told that the judges had run away and that they refuse to reconvene. The judges wanted Anwar’s lawyers to file a formal application as how they had earlier ruled.

Anwar was infuriated. “What spineless judges. They said fifteen minutes and now they refuse to see us. They don’t even have the guts to defend their decision,” said Anwar.

By now there was utter confusion in the courtroom.

When Anwar’s lawyers requested to meet the judges in chambers it was denied. So they went to see the Chief Justice, Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, instead, who advised the three judges to reconvene.

The court then reconvened and Pajan asked everyone to come back at 3.00pm to make their arguments on the oral bail application. And the judges stood up and walked off.

“What do you expect from these junior judges?” Anwar shouted. “They have been pre-selected to make this decision. It is all scripted.”

“Malaysia is no different from the regimes of Mugabe and Saddam Hussein where the judiciary has been used as a political tool.”

The court was in an uproar, with many shouting, “kill the judges”, “judge haprak (pariah)”, “judges got no balls”, and many more statements that just cannot be repeated here.

Anwar told everyone to remain calm and to voice their opposition through the ballot box.

“We expected this rejection but never like this,” said Nurul Izzah, Anwar’s eldest daughter. “We were not told why our arguments were not accepted. No reasons were given. They just rejected it like that. I also feel bad for Uncle Sukma.”

“We are applying for bail pending an appeal to the Federal Court. The court will have to decide whether an oral application can be made and heard or whether there ought to be a written application,” said Karpal Singh, one of Anwar’s lawyers.

“All the judges did was to set out the different arguments and then made a general decision that the appeal is dismissed, which to my mind is quite wrong.”

At 3.00pm the court reconvened but the decision stood. Bail was denied and Anwar would have to bring his appeal and application for bail to the Federal Court. Anwar would have to go back to jail while Sukma would have to start serving his sentence.

And the three judges, again, just stood up and walked out of the courtroom.

“You are spineless judges,” Anwar shouted at the judges as they left the courtroom and the entire court responded by booing.

For the first time in Malaysian judicial history the court reverberated to the shouts of “Boo!” Never has this happened before. And the police just stood there not knowing how to react and not daring to. The crowd wanted blood and anyone’s blood would have done.

“This decision adds to the already widespread perception that in politically sensitive cases, the independence of the judiciary can no longer be guaranteed,” said Amnesty International. “Today, the situation looks much bleaker.”

Anwar's wife, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, said, “The verdict was no surprise. This is a political case. It is a political prosecution because on the counts of law, we would have won the case.”

“There would not even have been a case against Anwar. It is quite telling the way the judges read out the decision citing no grounds at all,” added Dr Wan Azizah.

“This is a case where reasons ought to have been given for every point put up,” said Karpal. “We expected that...this prosecution should not even have taken place given the evidence by Azizan Abu Bakar whose credibility is nil.”

On the bail application that was turned down, Karpal said, “This is not one of those cases where bail ought to be rejected. This is not a capital offence case. Bail has been allowed even in the murder case involving senior lawyer Balwant Singh. I can’t understand why the prosecution should object to bail being allowed.”

On the revocation of Sukma’s bail, Karpal said, “The judges themselves revoked it. This is quite wrong. In fact, bail should be extended since he has been on bail since his conviction by the High court. I don’t see any difference between now and the time when his appeal is made to the Federal Court.”

“We intend to go further,” added Karpal. “An appeal will be filed afterwards. We will be appealing against the conviction and sentence confirmed just now by the Court of Appeal.”