Saturday, September 08, 2012

S of the Law

The Malaysian Insider - The hypocrisy around consent to sex by children - Ravinder Singh

The Malaysian Insider - Guan Eng: Review rape laws, make impact statements mandatory

Free Malaysia Today - Parliament, statutory rape and children lying?

Malaysiakini - Judge's 'women exaggerate sexual act' remark slammed

Four articles above continue with views on Malaysians' utter disgust with our judiciary in their bizarre judgements on adults having sex with children, with ages raging from 13 down to about 5, the latter being in a kindergarten.



Initially I thought of using the idiom 'House of cards' to describe the Appeals Court's judgement (in the first case involving the bowler with the bright future). The idiom basically means a judgement/decision which was badly put together and easily knocked down.



Then there was the word 'dominoes' as in 'The Domino Theory', a term frequently mentioned during The Cold War to suggest that once a nation, say, Vietnam, had fallen like a domino to communism, that fallen domino would result in the consequential fall to communism of other neighbouring 'domino' nations, like Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, etc.   



But somehow I feel both won't adequately describe what I believe to be sorry case regarding the recent spate of statutory rapes that slipped through our remarkable judiciary net - jaring dah bocor liao lah, pordah!



IMHO, the monumental fc*k-up started with the Appeal Court's decision not to jail Noor Afizal Azizan. but to allow him to be merely fined a trifling sum and release on a bond.

Mind, some would argue the Malaysian history of this class of rapists began much much earlier. One could also claim the consequences in those days were worse, though not/never for the alleged rapist, but for the person who conscientiously complained about the authority not doing anything about the statutory rape other than detaining the alleged victim.

In the predictable end, the alleged rapist got away and was even honoured while the man who sought his conviction was unjustly convicted, an eternal black mark on the PM of that time. The rot in our judicial system became evident then, and it continues till today.

Once the court decided not to jail Noor Afizal even though he was found guilty of statutory rape, that judgement became a precedent. Bearing in mind it was set by the Appeals Court, the subordinate courts just fell into line.



Okay, so perhaps 'fall into line' would be the appropriate idiom, bearing in mind that its term 'fall into' does not mean jatuh dalam but 'to conform'.

We can even argue that Noor Afizal could be considered the saviour of the other two.

Yes, those amazing judges helped as well with their bloody screw-ball judgements and creativity in bringing to bear on their respective cases new laws hitherto unheard of, like the concept of 'consensual sex' in statutory rapes. They also showed more concerns for the perpetrators than the victims.

Perhaps they can join the ranks of some Catholic priests like the 'Most Reverent' (wakakaka) Benedict Groeschel of of the conservative Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, New York who stated, just about 10 days ago, that priests accused of child sex abuse had often been seduced by their accusers and that a first-time offender should not go to jail.

Catholic priest Benedict Groeschel

He said: 'People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to [be] a psychopath.


'But that’s not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster is the seducer.'

For thousands of years many people of his profession (of all religions) had/have fc*ked up (in some cases, literally) laypeople in many lands.

As a priest he is considered by the faithful as a spiritual judge, but do you think he could qualify as a secular judge of the law, wakakaka?

24 comments:

  1. Rahim Tamby Chik, if that's the historical case you refer to, is innocent.

    Please get the facts right. Its all on public record.

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  2. tan sri UMNOputra has good future just by title. so, lge has to go to jail for fighting for the poor malay girl.
    thats Kerala law espoused by a mamak.

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  3. There are interesting parallels between the recent Nor Afizal ("bright future") Appeals Court ruling and the 2001 Federal Court ruling on Adorna Properties Sdn Bhd vs Boonsom Boonyanit. The Adorna case was an unrelated civil suit involving a land scam carried out by a 3rd party.

    Both cases ended with "BN/UMNO-friendly" judges doing a well-connected defendant a boon, a big favour.

    In both cases, the reprehensible side effect is that because these are Senior Courts, they become the template for future rulings by Junior courts, even when the circumstances are different.

    There is no written rule saying a junior court must follow older Senior court rulings, but a junior judge would have to be prepared with very solid arguments to act in a contrary manner. Very few do.

    Yes, after 55 years of UMNO-rule, even the Highest courts in the land are now utterly corrupt.

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  4. Some time ago, a friend introduced me to a lawyer to handle some legal issues with regards to some property dispute. This lawyer's office is in Seremban and he came from a family of quite prominent lawyers...sister, father and elder brother are all lawyers too. It was rumoured that this family of lawyerly siblings practically owned half of Seremban's shophouses and office buildings.

    One fine day, after one of our meetings at his office, I was invited for lunch at his house which was a sprawling bungalow with a huge garden. When we arrived at his house, the first thing I noticed at a corner of his garden was a small cage.....and inside this tiny cage, was a bear ! The poor animal hardly have room to move in his tiny prison and was making moaning distressing cries and striking his head repeatedly on the iron bars.

    Although he gave a lavish spread at the lunch table, I had promptly lost my appetite and tentatively asked him if he had a special license to keep such a 'pet'? His face immediately turned sourish and ignoring my question, he continued his prattle about the great indian mythology and folklores which he was very enamoured with.

    Then he decided to talk about his past cases, revealing that he had once defended a rapist and he crowed how he won the case for that rapist. The man was charged in court for raping his daughter who was then 9 years of age....and the lawyer was raving about what an absolute beauty that little girl was, being of mixed ancestory. I did ask if the father was really was guilty of raping his daughter and he confirmed that it was without a doubt he was guilty.... in fact, he had been raping his daughter for at least one and half years before the mother came to know of it and the whole thing was exposed.

    I asked the lawyer why did he take on this case even when he knew the father was guilty ? His answer was........ that our people's thinking in this part of the world is still 'very insular and primitive', that in certain part of the world, ( he then mentioned France ), 'they' are more advanced and sophisticated and broadminded and what's wrong with having the 'first taste' of a lovely flower, afterall, the father had put in all that expense and care to bring up that girl and in the end, it will be a 'waste' if she goes off to another man when eventually she gets married ?

    Needless to say, I did not finish that lunch session and I immediately requested to have a new lawyer to handle my property dispute case.

    Sorry to be so 'cheong hei' about this true story, but it is not surprising that a person who was so impervious to the cries of a suffering animal will also be lacking in empathy to an innocent victim of rape. In his own eyes, he's very cosmopolitan and well travelled and broadminded.

    Even now, I do wonder on the fate of that poor girl who must now be in her teens. Perchance, our judges who recently ruled on those rape cases also have the same broadmindedness and sophistication of that smug full-of-himself lawyer ?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kena delete ke sunwayopal ? Why so bodoh one.....keep doing the same thing and getting the same result( kena deleted, hehe) and somemore, getting indignant about it. Kalau memang bodoh, at least keep quiet about it laa. Hehe, padan muka kau.

    Learn from someone here laa. Monsterbaby supports AI to the hilt but her comments NEVER kena deleted one. Belajar lah sikit, oi si bodoh oi. You punya style not effective lah....so pathetic your comments semua nya.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ktemoc the stupid coward delete again huh.

    why? truth cutting too close to the bone?


    Like i said, why blame the judge and not talk about the Najis that appointed these idiots to the courts.

    Much like ktemoc the stupid always talking about PKR and frogology but leaving out the Najis who just refuses to pass a law banning frogology outright.

    To call someone like that stupid is to demean the very word stupid.


    useless.



    sunwayopal

    ReplyDelete
  7. eh bodoh, if ktemoc the stupid keeps deleting means i am doing something right lah bodoh!


    must b the truth getting to close to the stupid one.

    much like Najis, he must absolutely hate it when someone gets one up over him.





    sunwayopal

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  8. Parliament will stand automatically on April 27, 2013. I'm very concerned that will be the last elected Parliament Malaysia will ever see.

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  9. The learned judges (3 of them) undersTands what's compassion in the ruling. The case is not really an actual rape, there was no harm involved here and the girl consented the intercourse. And we are lving in modern era, can't we learn to be compassionate and understanding. We'll be laughing stock by the future generation just like how we condemn our forefathers judging crime on adultery.

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  10. anon of 11:48 PM, September 09, 2012, I congratulate you on your understanding of what statutory rape is about, as you certainly have the mental capacity to be a Malaysian judge.

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  11. A lot of paedo sympathisers here...hehe..

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  12. Corruption and abysmal judicial standards are twin brothers.

    Once judges make rulings based on tangible benefits, behind-the-scenes influences, or anything other than what is right and just, it is a very steep slippery slope down to ineptitude.

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  13. "laughing stock by the future generation"

    i think in the past women can have sex the moment start menstruation, which i suppose are around 12 n 13, yet many countries pass law to set a age limit n no one is laughing, because we believe mentally we are still not considered mature at certain age, however one may dispute what is the best age to start having sex which are vary in difference countries, but that doesn't meant everyone have to agree with you. and kt already make it clear that no victim is 16 in the current case.

    i believe a country that provide adequate sex education can choose to set an earlier age compare to the norm. a simple question is what happen if one get pregnant at 16? is she ready for that? n who shd responsible n bear the consequence if not the girl and her parents? n btw, order to kill and make a choice to kill is not the same, so the contention of joining the army at 16 is not a relevant comparison.

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  14. 15 year olds can be very...seductive...believe it..
    I've met some very horny ones...Only the worry about the "statutory rape" thingy stopped me from going "all the way".
    No coercion whatsoever...

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  15. hmmm...i’m not qualified to explain certain concepts to some idiot. this require professional psychiatric training.

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  16. Yup...fully agree..Ktemoc's blog has a tendency to attract all kinds of idiots and weirdos...

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  17. I don't agree with Anon 12.02pm, Sept 10.
    KT's blog didn't had "a tendency to attract all kinds of idiots and weirdos..." before. I think that it increased sharply of late.

    Perhaps since his writings featured recently in MT. I don't know.

    Perhaps KT can take the 'comments' as battle scar. Whoever they are, it just prove that more readers are at KTemoc than before.

    Cheers.

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  18. People change. Thinking and perception will change to times. We even have 9 year boy/girl know how to use computers better than grandpa/grandmons. You may see teenage sex as crime, but no injury happened here. The act mutually consented! Have a heart you people, the accused already suffer enough with the trials. Luckily we still have compassionate judges in court of appeal.

    Aren't isa, sedition, illegal assembly, are laws too, and yet why you ppl condemn them? Old days, women, black people cannot vote and today we condemn these laws. And modernity condemns law to force women sacrifice for their dead husbands. So, why are we so against sex between teenagers. What a double standard, shame of such conservative mentality. And we're laughing ourselves on law against sodomise and homosexual.

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  19. The judges already ruled the accused are guilty. They just waived the imprisonmenT sentence due to accused did not criminal record and good background. One of them is national bowler?! They already plead guilty, so what's more do you want? Have a heart!

    ReplyDelete
  20. People change. Thinking and perception will change to times. We even have 9 year boy/girl know how to use computers better than grandpa/grandmons. You may see teenage sex as crime, but no injury happened here. The act mutually consented! Have a heart you people, the accused already suffer enough with the trials. Luckily we still have compassionate judges in court of appeal.

    Aren't isa, sedition, illegal assembly, are laws too, and yet why you ppl condemn them? Old days, women, black people cannot vote and today we condemn these laws. And modernity condemns law to force women sacrifice for their dead husbands. So, why are we so against sex between teenagers. What a double standard, shame of such conservative mentality. And we're laughing ourselves on law against sodomise and homosexual.





    look at this bodoh statement.

    We are not against sex between kids per se with each other.

    What we are against is sex between a child and an adult!

    ala Rahim Thamby Chik and child schoolgirl! Understand or not.

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  21. The judges already ruled the accused are guilty. They just waived the imprisonmenT sentence due to accused did not criminal record and good background. One of them is national bowler?! They already plead guilty, so what's more do you want? Have a heart!

    6:40 PM, September 10, 2012





    I hope next time when someone f*cks your 5 year old daughter or granddaughter, u find it in yoruself to as u say it ..."Have a Heart'

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  22. Most of us condemn the abuse of law and not the law itself, or law that apparently discriminate in nature, I still have no idea what is the contention here, like I said, we can choose to lower the age of consent to reflect the reality if there is ample proof that we are ready and supported by majority, thus we can criticize the law pertaining to consent age but not the law itself, or you prefer to do away this law that any consenting act among “teenagers” is not a crime? What about a 5, 9 and 12 years old “teenager”, or one teenager that consent the act of an 18, 28, 38 years old adult?

    There is law in almost every country that set limit on porn, drinking, sex, gambling and driving, not because these act are dangerous, a crime or no heart, but simply because of concerns minors aren’t ready to evaluate and understand the implications of these things. The fact presented in the current case mirror almost the same thing, it happen between a minor (teenager?) and an adult (teenager?) and not between two teenagers which may deserve some compassionate heart if subject to heavy punishment. Are you with us?

    Not to be blunt but I think your comprehension skill is still at teenager level.

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  23. Anon of 6:40 PM, September 10, 2012, yes, they pleaded guilty AND the judge in each case should have imposed a jail term; there was no such mitigating factor as consensual sex or that the rapist has no criminal record.

    Whether that bloke was a national bowler is irrelevant; the President of Israel was jailed for rape.

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  24. The Presiden of Israel didn't have a bright future....

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