This week, a high court judge ruled that the police have to pay Pastor Koh’s family M37 million - or RM10,000 per day from the day that Pastor Koh went missing until he is found Koh - over the their involvement in his abduction.
In his verdict, the Judge, Justice Su Tiang Joo, basically ruled that the police had, in fact, abducted Pastor Raymond Koh under orders — and caused him to vanish without a trace eight years ago.
In the same court room, the judge also ordered the police to pay RM3 million to the family of Amri Che Mat, who was similarly disappeared in 2016. Again, nobody involved in Amri's disappearance have been held accountable, but the police are being forced to pay RM 3 million to his family.
Now although we can be happy that Pastor Koh’s and Amri’s family have gotten some sort of closure over the mysterious and disturbing disturbance of the loved one through the verdict, the fact remains that the fact that their closure came in the form of monetary compensation, instead of holding the perpetrators accountable, is raising disturbing question as to whether everything in Malaysia can be solved with money.
Justice Su himself admitted the cruel irony of it all. While the victims’ families receive “justice,” the taxpayers — not the guilty officers — will foot the bill. “It offends the concept of fairness,” he said, noting that the very people abused by the system are now paying for its crimes.
“It offends the concept of fairness, reasonableness and justice,” he said.
He then quoted former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s 1983 speech at the Conservative Party Conference to illustrate his point.
“Let us never forget this fundamental truth, the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves.
“If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more.
“It is no good thinking that someone else will pay ― that ‘someone else’ is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money,” he quoted.
In his ruling, Su also cited the case of Mongolian interpreter Altantuya Shaariibuu, who was murdered by two Royal Malaysia Police officers. In that case , the Shah Alam High Court had found both the officers and the Malaysian government vicariously liable for her death in 2022.
He noted with bitter irony, how the same principle applied to Koh’s and Amri’s cases — that the higher the award, the more public funds would be used.
“It would probably distress the sense of justice of the man on the street that he will be contributing towards the payment of damages awarded to be paid by the very person entrusted to protect him and who have been found liable for abusing such power,” he added.
A few months ago, Rafizi Ramli had already brought up the issue of how the "Cash is King” phenomenon, seems to be governing how justice and fairness is arbitrated in the country.
After the acquittal of Segambut Bersatu deputy division chief Adam Radlan Adam Muhammad, who walked away from 12 corruption and money-laundering charges after paying a RM4.1 million compound, Rafizi called it “the most profitable business in town.”
“You are accused of getting RM6.7 million,” he said, “pay RM4.1 million and keep RM2.6 million. That’s a 39% profit margin without doing anything.”
He then asked the obvious question: if a VIP can walk free after paying a fine, will an ordinary person who steals a carton of milk be treated the same?
Adam Radlan, by the way, is not the only “Cash is King” phenomenon we are witnessing in our law-and-order circuit.
After Adam, former prime minister Ismail Sabri and his aides, who were accused of having over 170 million ringgit in cash that they couldn’t explain in their possession, also escaped prosecuting by the authorities after the forfeited the money the government.
All this incidences where you can get away Scot free even after doing something illegal, for as long as you are willing to pay for it, reminds me of the practise of giving letter of indulgences during the middle ages in Europe.
600 years ago , A letter of indulgence was a document that the Church offered to rich patrons as a remission of punishment for sins, typically time in purgatory, in exchange for pious acts or monetary donations.
In other words, if you are rich in the middle ages in Europe, and you committed a crime like murder or theft, all you have to do is go to church, confess your sin and be willing to pay the church with a hefty enough a “donation”, and the church will give you a letter of indulgence, that will clear you of the need to pay for the crime, both in this world and the next world.
When you look at the case of Pastor Koh, Amri, Ismail Sabri and Adam Radlan, doesn’t it sound like they too have received their letter of indulgences from the “church”, or the government and authorities, in today’s context, after settling their sins with money.
In middle age Europe, It is practise such as giving letter of indulgences, that caused the father of reformation, Martin Luther to launch the reformation movement against the excesses and corruption of the church.
Ironically however, in Malaysia, the practise of giving of our own “letter of indulgences” is occurring after the Reformasi movement won, and installed the Malaysian father of reformasi, Anwar Ibrahim, as the prime minister of the nation.
I suppose, in the end, Najib was right - Cash is indeed king in Malaysia. As long as you can pay for it, it does seem like you can get away with anything in Malaysia, doesn’t it?
TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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