Dr Mahathir Mohamad: Ian Chin’s Great Revelation

Dr Mahathir Mohamad: Ian Chin’s Great Revelation

1. I have not commented earlier on Justice Dato Ian Chin's (Chin J) exposé about my misdeeds because I needed time to recall events which happened more than a decade ago and to find documents which may give credibility to my explanations.

2. I am grateful that some judges and ex-judges have refuted what Chin J said about my threatening judges. The Singapore Straits Times (not my favourite paper) seems more willing than Malaysian papers to report how Chin J's colleagues were stunned by his statements.

3. One Court of Appeal judge told the Straits Times, “I asked my brother judge who was on the bench with me this morning whether he remembered the incident, and he asked me the same”. Neither of them did. Nor did retired senior judges Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah, Tan Sri Lamin Yunus and Datuk Shaik Daud Ismail, who were quoted in the New Straits Times.

4. About the “thinly veiled threat” to remove judges, the Straits Times reported “Several judges have since disputed his version of the event”.

5. Those contacted by the Straits Times “did not remember him (the ex-PM) issuing a threat to sack judges who did not take his view”.

6. A serving judge who was present at the conference said: “There was nothing like that at all. It would have been so shocking that I would have remembered it”.

7. It seems that except for Chin J, no one else heard the threat. I attended only one judges conference and I remember I talked on two subjects:

1) The mandatory death sentence on drug traffickers
2) Litigation

I explained the need to deter drug trafficking through the most severe punishment. There were more than 200,000 addicts in Malaysia. They were practically the living dead and indeed many died prematurely. They were involved in drug related crimes, including murder, rape and even matricide. Malaysia needed to reduce drug addiction but judges were reluctant to pronounce the death penalty. That was why it was made mandatory.

8. On litigation, I talked about the situation in America where huge sums were awarded by judges, including for alleged malpraxis and negligence on the part of doctors.

9. As a result doctors would order costly laboratory and other tests to avoid accusation by claimant’s lawyers that they neglected to give the best service to the patients. To cover all these tests, medical charges are very high in America and the poor cannot pay.

10. Insurance premiums for doctors are also very high and the patients may be bankrupted by high medical fees. I did not want this to happen in Malaysia.

11. At no time did I issue any threat against the judges.

12. As for the boot camp, our military forces may have it. But what we did have were courses on “Tata Negara” or “National Creed” at work camps.

13. At such courses the speakers try to explain Malaysia’s political system with particular reference to the BN concept, ethics and moral values and democracy in Malaysia.

14. Participants included civil servants, corporate leaders, politicians and university staff. I suppose judges also attended.

15. For three to five days the participants stayed at the camps and followed certain programs. This included getting up very early in the morning (for prayers for Muslims), physical exercises and many hours of lectures. One of the chores was to wash your own dirty plates after a simple meal. When I gave talks at these work camps I too wash my dirty dishes. It was part of leadership by example.

16. Thousands of people from all walks of life attended these work camps. There were hardly any complaints.

17. I was told by a judge who was in the same batch as Chin J that he absconded before the course was over. Perhaps he did not like getting up early and washing his own dirty plates.

18. The course clearly did not have a positive effect on him.

19. I am disgusted with Dato Zaid Ibrahim, Dato Ambiga Sreenivasan and Karpal Singh who immediately assumed that Chin J was telling the truth. Zaid even went so far as to say this is normal, as if I threatened judges all the time.

20. I will be writing a little more on Ian Chin J so that the public will become more acquainted with him. Suffice for me to say for the present that Chin J has a police report against him for hiding his past when hearing a certain case.

21. The public can then pass judgement on me. But of course if I have to be charged by Karpal Singh, the ardent supporter of Dato Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, that is fine. The world will then know what kind of Government we have.