It is sad to note that in a speech at the opening of Legal Year 2024, the Attorney General falls back on the Federal Constitution to defend his office saying he is empowered to make any such decision and under Article 145(3) of the Federal Constitution, the Public Prosecutor is not bound to furnish any reason whatsoever to any parties on reasons for seeking the withdrawal of charges against an accused.
A case involving a challenge to the Public Prosecutor’s discretion involving the tort of misfeasance in office, not as a discrete cause of action but an indicia of abuse of power was filed by lawyer Rosli bin Dahlan and his client Dato’ Pahlawan Ramli bin Yusoff separately against the AG as PP.
An application was made to strike out the suit on the grounds principally of the AG’s non-justiciable, absolute discretion.
The courts, giving almost identical but separate judgments, held that the discretion was not absolute but qualified where its exercise was questionable.
The transparency in public administration has a great impact in the process of public administration reform and promotes the level of efficiency, effectiveness and responsiveness, as main components of the concept of “good administration”.
The principle of transparency picks up where the principle of legality falls short.
Transparency is considered as an important condition for high-quality governance.
With the wide use of ICT and internet and social media, the ordinary rakyat today have high expectations toward the government, demanding much greater transparency, good governance and accountability.
Transparency as one of the main principles of good governance enables the ordinary rakyat to monitor the work of the public administration in general as well as the decision-making process specifically.
Transparency symbolizes a mechanism of promoting good governance and public trust in a democratic and modern public administration.
In democratic and modern public administration, the principle of transparency is a controlling element against maladministration and corruption and the promoter of good governance and accountability toward protection of public interest and the rights of the ordinary rakyat.
In this regard the principle of transparency can be considered as an advocate of legitimacy and accountability in the administration that establishes a reciprocal confidence between the government and the ordinary rakyat and guarantees ease of gaining information.
Transparency is a fundamental requirement for the reliability and integrity of public institutions in order to promote public trust and public support.
The deficiency of transparency in the decision-making process has a direct impact to dim the confidence in public administration and participation of the ordinary rakyat.
Lack of transparency and accountability in public administration inter alia diminishes the value of democracy and rule of law.
Only through transparency, public officials prove to the ordinary rakyat that the principle of accountability and responsibility are being respected in this country.
As long as accountability remains a duty for the public officials to report for their actions, then the transparency becomes a practice.
A standard of transparency and accountability improves the performance of public administration, as the ordinary rakyat anticipate from the public official's adequate services which are of public interest, and served on the grounds of justice.
Unless national security is cited as the reason, the government cannot resort to mechanisms such as the Federal Constitution for matters of public interests where they refuse to supply the reasons and basis for their decision of the ongoing investigations or proceedings of a criminal trial.
There is no democracy without accountability and transparency because accountability is the obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions while transparency is the quality of being easily seen through and in governance, is when actions of the government are scrupulous enough to bear public scrutiny.
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