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By P Gunasegaram
Standfirst: It’s not a matter of whether Najib can be pardoned, it’s if he should be
How many times more is the judicial process going to be stretched, bent over, malformed, manipulated and otherwise circumvented to get a convicted criminal - the biggest kleptocrat the world has ever seen and who faces a multitude of other serious charges in the billions of ringgit - released from jail and to the comfort of his own house?
This person, former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, who abused the trust placed in him to systematically and wilfully conspire with Jho Low then not even out of his thirties to pilfer billions from the nation’s coffers, what has he done to deserve such treatment?
If we had triable treason laws in the country, he could have been found guilty on many counts and faced the most serious sentences possible for causing so much damage to the country.
The irony is that Umno Baru, the most corrupt party in the country, headed by a person who himself faces multiple charges of corruption, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, and part of PMX Anwar Ibrahim’s so-called Madani government, is leading this ridiculous charge to get the nation to bend backwards for Najib yet again.
It’s bad enough that the Pardons Board halved his jail sentence and reduced that RM210 million fine to a mere RM50 million, now Ahmad Zahid has sworn an affidavit saying that the King consented to his house arrest in an addendum. But that was not what the Pardons Board had decided.
Anwar’s reaction to this has been nothing less than pathetic, saying that he does not want to be dragged in and refusing to comment on whether he knew about the addendum.
Worse, he said, “The federal government will not question the authority of the former Yang di-Pertuan Agong to decide on former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s house detention.
“Our position is clear that any decision made in the Pardons Board, the Agong’s decision, is final, ” he said according to this article, Najib house arrest: Anwar says govt respects Agong's discretion.
But has not the Pardon’s Board made the final decision, which is the reduction of the sentence and fine? Najib is already serving that sentence.
As it is, there is no provision in the legal system for house arrest, according to this article, KINIGUIDE | 'House arrest': Is there such a thing?, the best thing to do is to keep the decision of the Pardon’s Board final instead of introducing unprecedented arrangements to bend and even break the legal system
Anwar said further over the weekend, “Ever since Merdeka until today, there has been no action by the government that goes against the role and power of the Malay rulers, and this we must keep. Those who can’t understand the decision, they are not fit to be a political commentator.”
That’s a politically charged comment. I apologise for being an unfit commentator in Anwar’s eyes at least and there are others like me, but this is by no means the final legal opinion. As in many other situations, the King acts under advice.
Not all lawyers agree with Anwar. Here is an article by lawyer GK Ganeson which says the power to grant pardons by the King is not absolute: Is the King’s power to grant a pardon, ‘personal’ and ‘absolute’? - GK Legal
Anwar’s response has raised more questions than answers. It looks like the disturbing direction that the government is headed as far as this is concerned is house arrest for Najib, because “the federal government will not question the authority of the former Yang di-Pertuan Agong”.
He has already indicated which way he leans with regard to questions of law. But the question he will be asked is whether he is leaning in this direction to satisfy Umno’s demands and not because the law says so. If he is, and it looks like he is, he is driving a political nail into PKR’s coffin.
When PKR unequivocally won the elections of May 2018, the main rallying point for this was the billions of ringgit lost by the country estimated at US$7 billion ( a massive RM33 billion) by no less than the auditor general in 2016, which report was suppressed by Najib.
And there were a multitude of allegations against other Umno leaders. In fact it was reported at various times that many Umno divisions received money from Najib in the millions of ringgit. 1MDB was the final nail in the coffin for Umno, now desperate for a revival of their fortunes, ironically through a pardon for Najib.
What’s dangerous is that Anwar appears to have bought into this fallacious argument pushed hard by Ahmad Zahid and his Umno cronies. PKR and Harapan are now tethered to Umno over this issue. In the sea of outrage and scorn that will pour over the political landscape following Najib’s undeserved pardon and release, they will drown along with Umno.
Najib’s pardon and release will result in the PN - that coalition between Pas and Bersatu - winning the next general elections. It was repeated corruption that resulted in dwindling support for Umno and it will result in a fatal loss for Harapan as well from which it will not recover.
Look at the track record of Umno under Najib. In 2013 he garnered 88 parliamentary seats for Umno. In 2018, when 1MDB was all the news and the public realised that Najib was a thief, it dived some four-tenths to 54 seats. He lost the elections, the first time ever that Umno has.
Under his crony, Ahmad Zahid, it declined further by a disastrous more than half to 26 in 2022, making it all but irrelevant. And Zahid campaigned on the platform of getting a pardon for Najib which really backfired. Now Harapan has set itself up to go under together with Umno.
Just look at the extent to which the system has bent over for Najib. On July 4, 2018, just under two months after the Pakatan Harapan government came into power he was charged for offences of corruption, abuse of power and money laundering involving RM42 million.
After a long exhausting trial and dramatic appeal processes and rearguard delay tactics, Najib was finally, after four years, told to begin his sentence of 12 years jail and a fine of RM210 million on 23rd August 2022 when Ismail Sabri Yaakop from Umno was prime minister.
He has not even served two years in jail and his sentence has been halved through the pardon process and his fine reduced to RM50 million. Typically a person serves at least half of his sentence even before a pardon is entertained.
He has expressed no remorse for his actions, maintains he is a political victim and many allegations were made against the judge who convicted him and against the entire judicial system itself. But no action has been taken against anyone for such blatant, unwarranted and unprecedented attacks on the judiciary.
All this effort for a person who is facing multiple other charges. There are three other pending high-profile court cases against Najib, which include 25 charges involving RM2.3 billion, six criminal breach of trust cases involving RM6.6 billion and money laundering involving RM27 million.
In addition, Najib faces a colossal US$1.18 billion (RM5.5 billion) civil suit against him from SRC International, another government corporation.
In the wake of all of this, there is the unbelievable current move now about house arrest for a convicted felon who faces many other charges and is responsible for the greatest theft in the world at the time it was committed.
And, coincidentally of course, this comes at a time when the government, in its sudden unbidden compassion for prisoners, is thinking of allowing them to serve their last four years of sentence at home. Come August, Najib would have served two years of his halved six-year sentence, leaving four years remaining.
Talk about bending over backwards! Is it any wonder why the ringgit continues to decline? It’s partly because stretching the law to breaking point calls into question the very principle of crime and its attendant punishments with the looming prospect of a major criminal serving time at his home. Would anyone have respect for our legal system after this?
Najib has injured this country for far too long and far too much. The best thing to do is to put him away for a long time - legally of course - so that others won’t follow his lousy example.
What deterrence against corruption can there be when the most corrupt person the country has ever produced gets away with a rap on the knuckles, whiling away his time in the luxury of his own home.
Those who do not understand this are unfit to be political leaders. It's not a matter of whether he can be pardoned, it's whether he should be. The answer is as clear as crystal.
(P Gunasegaram says crime must be followed by punishment or the system breaks down. He is the author of the first book written on the so-called strategic development company 1Malaysia Development Bhd, “1MDB: The Scandal that Brought Down a Government”.)
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