Court affirms that in Malaysia political donations received and used solely for political purposes are not corruption, regardless of what the donor may gain in return

by Ganesh Sahathevan

                                                               

                                                        Judge Datuk Mohd Yazid Mustafa

The  High Court has affirmed that in Malaysia political donations used solely for political purposes  are not corruption. The decision seems to suggest that that would be the case regardless of  anything that the donor might gain as a consequence. 

In  PP V Ahmad Zahid Bin Hamidi His Honour Dato Haji Mohd Yazid Haji Mustafa of the High Court Malaysia affirmed three Malaysian cases where it was found that political donations used solely for political purposes are not corruption.

His Honour held:

In PP v Saidin Thamby [2012] 4 CLJ , the witnesses testified that the accused received RM1 million as political donation for UMNO Selayang to pay for the UMNO Selangor building. None of the prosecution witnesses testified that the said money was corruptly given to the accused as gratification. The accused was merely a recipient on behalf of UMNO Selangor. Based on such finding, the donation was purely for political. purpose.

In Tengku Adnan Mansor v PP [ 2021] MLJU 2200 ,the majority decision the Court of Appeal concluded that the learned trial judge of the High Court failed to consider the evidence of the 2 prosecution witnesses that the sum of RM2 million was for political contribution to UMNO Kuala Lumpur for the 2 by-elections in Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar. The learned trial judge also failed to take into account the evidence of the investigating officer that the said RM2million could have been a political donation, 

In PP v Zul bin Hassan  [2013] 5 MLJ 489, the Court of Appeal in deciding whether a donation to a political party could be an offence or not, it depended on the circumstances and facts of each case. Based on the said Court of Appeal decision, the amount received would have been corruptly received if such amount was used for any reason other than political  purposes.

From my understanding of the decided authorities, political donation is only a good defence provided that first, the money had been received as a political donation and secondly, the monies had been spent purely for political purposes with supporting evidence to that effect. For instance, in Saidin Thamby case the prosecution witnesses confirmed that the money received was only for UMNO.

In PP V Ahmad Zahid Bin Hamidi His Honour found that the defence had not proven that the funds received by Ahmad Zahid Hamidi were used solely for political purposes, and thus denied him the defence. His Honour did however find that the prosecution had not proven its case against Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, and acquitted him of all charges without his defence having to be called.

Ahmad Zahid had been charged with gratification pursuant to the provisions of the Penal Code and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009.  He was alleged to have received   about USD  $11 million in bribes from a company that sought and was awarded contracts to provide the Government Of Malaysia a  visa issuance system.That fact was not in dispute.

END