Mutakhir (mSTAR Online)
Karpal: Review ‘88 judicial crisis
24-03-2008 06:45:54 PM
By M. MAGESWARI
KUALA LUMPUR: The Yang DiPertuan Agong should set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate the 1988 Judicial Crisis, said DAP national chairman Karpal Singh.
The inquiry should look into the integrity of the two tribunals involved in the crisis which led to the dismissal of the then Lord President Tun Salleh Abas and Supreme Court judges Tan Sri Wan Sulaiman Pawanteh and Datuk George Seah, he said. "The first tribunal found Tun Salleh guilty of misconduct while the second tribunal found the two judges guilty of misconduct," he said. Karpal Singh said "the terms of reference should be to decide the tribunals were in fact set up on sufficient basis and grounds".
He told a press conference at Jalan Duta court complex Monday that the inquiry should establish whether there was misconduct on the part of former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The veteran lawyer said the inquiry should also determine if there was any abuse of provisions of Article 125 (3) of the Federal Constitution. "Calling for the present administration to apologise is not a step in right direction. It is not the present administration that convened those tribunals," he said. He was responding to Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Zaid Ibrahim's proposal that the Federal Government apologise to the victims of the 1988 judicial crisis.
