A Proposed Apology To Tun Salleh Abas

The newly appointed Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Senator Datuk Zaid Ibrahim made a proposal to the new cabinet to apologise to the victims of the 1988 judicial crisis, one of whom notably was Tun Salleh Abas.

I applaud loud to the open-minded approach by the new minister.

The judicial crisis and the subsequent constitutional amendments marred the Malaysian system of government and made us a laughing stock of the world.

Our system of government was based on the principle of separation of powers between judicial, executive and legislative branches on equal footing, with each exerting a check and balance against each other.

Following the infamous crisis in 1988, Tun Dr. Mahathir pushed through the parliament amendments to the constitution to effectively put the supremacy of the executive over and above that of the judicial branch. In one way or another, this distorted our principle of separation of powers.

Quoting the words of Tun Dr. Mahathir in 1988, " we seek to divest the courts of the judicial power of the Federation and give them only such judicial power as Parliament might grant them in justifying the amendments", the constitutional amendments had done tremendous damage to our judicial system in terms of its independence and power.

Public noise is getting louder to dig up the case.

The picture shows Datuk Zaid Ibrahim.