High Court judge Ian Chin, who two weeks ago make stunning allegations that he was threatened by Dr Mahathir Mohamad for a number of high-profile cases, today fired another stinging salvo at the former prime minister.
“...Dr Mahathir for what he had done and for what he is trying to do is a devil incarnate but to those who had suffered under his hands, even that description my be rather complimentary,” said Chin in open court during a hearing of an election petition in Sibu, Sarawak, this afternoon. Mahathir had denied issuing a ‘thinly-veiled threat’ at a 1997 judges conference that they would be sacked if they decided unfavourably against his government.
Chin, a High Court judge for Sabah and Sarawak, said he had also been sent to an indoctrination 'boot camp' where participants were pressured into making pro-government decisions.While Mahathir conceded the existence of such ‘work camps’, he said these were held for participants to learn about Malaysia’s political system, the Barisan Nasional concept, ethics and moral values and democracy.
Chin also took offence with Mahathir in stating that there was a police report made against the judge for hiding his past when hearing a certain case.“Dr Mahathir, by waving the supposed police report the way he did, lent support to the general held view that this prime minister kept a docket on everyone useful but with a skeleton in their cupboard so that he can manipulate then on pain of disclosing the skeleton,” he said in a lengthy defence against the ex-PM’s remarks.
“I thought only the Stasi of the then communist East Germany do such a thing but then it was done for the benefit of the state not for an individual.“In my view, he is trying to exploit this general belief to wave that supposed police report to get the public to believe that I have committed something unlawful which he is privy to and which the public is not unaware so that my integrity could be put under suspicion to make what I have revealed unbelievable.
“Let me declare to the public that I am as clean as a whistle and my life is an open book.”
Boot camp: Judge told to carry egg
Chin also argued that his shocking revelations on the state of judiciary during Mahathir’s times was not because he was passed over for promotion. He tendered a number of letters he wrote to two different chief justices in which he told them that his wife wanted to return to Kota Kinabalu.
“Since I do not want promotion before, now or in the future nor any appointment after my retirement, what do I get out of all this knowing very well that I will be the target for vilification?“It is this. I must be able to sleep well after I retired knowing that I have done all I can, like all the crucified judges before me, to tell Malaysians the danger they are in regarding the state of the judiciary.”
Chin revealed more about the boot camp he attended as a judge and the humiliation which participants were forced into.“...You surrendered your wallet, your air ticket and handphone when you checked into the camp and you cannot go anywhere as it is in an isolated place and you cannot leave for anywhere as there is no transport.
"You are totally cut off from the outside world, with no newspapers or television and with selected news conveyed to you at the assembly for the purpose of sampling reaction such as the news that a certain party had won a by-election which elicited some applause from some young officers but they earned the rebuke of a High Court judge as that was an improper display of partisanship.
He said the objective of the boot camp was to “make us take orders” and a “junior officer was made our leader from whom we have to take orders from and one Sessions Court judge who disagreed with that was made to publicly apologise on a podium to his junior officer leader”.
“Another method employed was to chisel away the view we held of how independent we should be in our job as High Court judges and this they did by punishing or humiliating a High Court judge by making him carry a brick all the time after he broke the egg which each of us must carry wherever we went, including marching.“All these were, in my view, for the purpose of softening us to take order for the benefit of the government, meaning Dr Mahathir.”
Mahathir ‘lied about me absconding’
Chin also accused Mahathir of lying when the former premier alluded to the fact he “absconded” from the camp.“But two did leave, one because of illness and the other the wife’s illness. Everyone who was not otherwise sick had to remain and we all did save for the duo; with each given a certificate after the end of stay.“That Dr Mahathir should even resort to lying about me absconding from the camp speaks volume for the character of such person; he is lying by resorting to repeating it as if it is the truth.
“This is the same prime minister who lied to the world that (former deputy premier) Anwar Ibrahim could have deliberately hurt himself when the latter appeared with the black eye. He is also waving a police report perhaps for the purpose of intimidating me or to blacken me in the eyes of the public.”
Chin made the comment today during his hearing of the election petition filed by DAP candidate Wong Hua She, who wanted the court to declare the result of the Sarikei parliamentary contest on March 8 ‘null and void’.BN candidate Ding Kuong Hing had won the seat with a slim majority of 51 votes in the election three months ago.
The hearing continues tomorrow.
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