A 17-year-old youth is charged in the High Court in Melaka yesterday with murdering a 16-year-old girl. Unrepresented, he is allowed to plead guilty to murder and the High Court records it; the prosecution then outlines its case, and the youth accepted the account to be true.
No one in court - not the judge, not the prosecution, not any of the lawyers in court - found the proceedings odd or unusual. Further, he was named, as he should not. Why was he allowed to be named in court?
If an adult pleaded guilty without a lawyer advising him - if he cannot afford one, he is assigned one - the plea would have been stuck off on appeal. So, why was this unrepresented schoolboy, whether guilty or not, allowed to plead? Is a boy entitled to less protection than a man?
It is the law that any adult charged with murder must be represented, which if he or she cannot afford is given one at the state's expense. So, how is this boy allowed to plead guilty when unrepresented in a court without two assessors present as required when a juvenile is brought before the High Court? If anything, the law bends over backwards for juveniles to have more, not less, rights than an adult in the courts.
Everything rushed
Nothing published of the proceedings suggest this was the case. After the guilty plea, the prosecution gets a seven-day postponement for the Jasin Welfare Services department to evaluate the boy before he is sentenced.
How could the Welfare Services department, in Jasin or anywhere else, undertake a 'character test' or a 'psychological evaluation' in a week? Would the High Court be satisfied with a week's evaluation by a mental hospital for a man who pleads guilty to murder?
Newspapers carried the report without comment. The accused should not have been named, but is. Why? The High Court orders his photograph not be published. But is that enough? Why has not the Bar Council and others interested in justice raised questions?
The police record of solving murders is not what one would write home about: every high profile case in recently years - the Audrey Melissa, the Fernandez murder cases, for instance - are unresolved. But it is able to solve this at speed. Too many uncomfortable questions arise.
Legal formalities and requirements are ignored. Has a miscarriage of justice been committed? The case raises disturbing questions about fairness and fair play in instruments of justice.
Inspired breaking of the law
Malaysia these days is prone to inspired breaking of the law. The markets are flooded with pornographic VCDs? Let us tighten the law so that enforcement officers can raid your house at any time of the day or night and search for the banned stuff without a warrant. No one objects.
Too many rapes? Let us tighten the law so that life imprisonment is automatic on conviction. You do not pay your IWK bills? Let the debt collectors be sent in especially if IWK has no right, in the present circumstances, to collect any bills.
Too many companies do business the government disapproves of? Let the Registrar of Companies strike to de-register them at his discretion.
Too many phantom voters in the electoral rolls? Get a machine that will sort out the fake voters from the real. That this would not find out the officially issued identity cards to people who do not qualify or should not have them, the crux of this problem in Sabah and in several parts of Malaysia, is cheerfully ignored as of no consequence.
To come back to the murder charge, justice is impossible in this highly charged atmosphere. The suspect, in this case, a boy, caught and charged is deemed guilty, with the consent of the Melaka High Court which should have rejected the guilty plea.
The Judicial Commissioner concerned should not have allowed the boy to plead, should have insisted that he be represented, postponed the case to another day when what is required of the law is met.
The unconscionable speed with which the boy is brought to court - the murder took place on July 3, guilt recorded 17 days later, and disposal 24 days later - shocks.
Denial of rights
In normal cases, a murder suspect can languish in prison for months and years before he is formally charged and tried. So why the hurry in this case?
The new chief justice, Dzaiddin Abdullah, tries to bring the judiciary back on track. He has a tough task ahead of him and too little time.
The problem becomes clear when a seventeen-year-old schoolboy is arrested in a high profile rape case, in which his name is made known, the public mood whipped up to insist he is the culprit, and that made happen by ensuring he is denied his basic rights as an individual, as a citizen.
The Bar Council, Suhakam and NGOs should step in, and questions asked in the current session of Parliament. It is time uncomfortable questions are asked when, despite the best effort, justice insists on going off the rails yet again.