A Child Could Have Told You This

On 9 January after  Anwar Ibrahim had been acquitted on the charge of sodomising his one time aide Mohad Saiful Buhkari Azlan,  I wrote that that would not be the end of the matter for Anwar. That the prosecution could and would likely appeal his acquittal.

And so I have been proven correct. The prosecution has indeed appealed.  But a child could have told you this.

In a normal case, conviction, acquittal and appeal are part and parcel of the whole court  procedure available to the parties involved and nobody makes a fuss about it.

But in this case, many see the whole thing as a charade, as a political ploy to put Anwar out of the picture as he is seen as a threat to the ruling Barisan coalition, especially to UMNO's continuing hegemony of Malaysian politics and government.

Since the time of Mahathir's administration, confidence in the public institutions has plummeted.

Malaysians are hoping that the courts would be the last bastion of justice and protection.

Will they do the job independently, without fear or favour?

But the saddest thing is that following the infamous sacking of the former Lord President Tun Salleh Abas and several other senior judges in 1988 by the Mahathir administration, public confidence in the Malaysian judiciary has not recovered.