Islamic Womens' Council NZ blame Ardern, predecessors for Christchurch massacre: Is it time Winston Peters replaced Ardern as PM?

by Ganesh Sahathevan

                                            Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and                                                                               Green Party leader James Shaw showed a unified front. Its is perhaps time Peters

                                           replaced Ardern.




First see this by this writer:
PM Jacinda Ardern is to blame for the Christchurch massacre: Pontificating to the world, she failed to secure the safety of her own citizens

And now from Anjum Rahman,spokesperson at Islamic Women's Council of New Zealand

Time and again, the media have asked me whether or not I was surprised that this attack happened in our country. I will explain to you why I was not surprised. I will try to convey to you my absolute blinding rage.

The Islamic Women's Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ) was formed in 1989, and Muslim women have connected and gathered throughout the country ever since. Our leadership team has a good idea of what our women are going through and the issues in our daily lives. We know the impacts of mainstream discourses arising from wars and terrorist attacks overseas, and from events such as the publishing of ugly cartoons.

In recent times, we became concerned about the increasing pressure on our communities from rising levels of discrimination in this country, and the social issues that came with that. The issues we were seeing were too much for our community to resolve on a volunteer basis. More than this, the solutions were systemic and required investment by government in programmes and human resources.

So about five years ago, we wrote a comprehensive report of the problems we were facing and sent it to the Ministry of Social Development. We pushed, but as far as we know, nothing concrete was done with that report.

After our community was pushed into the spotlight with the "Jihadi brides" comments of our then Prime Minister, we continually requested engagement with government. The result of those very public requests was a visit by a government minister. We had a very frank and open discussion about our needs. We engaged with this minister more than once.

In October 2016, we met with the SIS (New Zealand Security Intelligence Service) at their request and again laid out the problems we were facing as a community and the help we needed.

We had been in constant contact with then-Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy and in December 2016 she convened a meeting with Muslim women, where we brought together everything we had been telling her over the year. She committed to using all her influence to help us and was an absolute champion for us. She has shown amazing courage in challenging the public service.

In January 2017, we met with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and laid out our concerns. In March 2017, the Human Rights Commission and the State Services Commission organised a ful- day meeting with heads of government. Various Muslim organisations presented to these very senior public servants.

At that meeting, IWCNZ put forward the major problem we were facing and the impacts of discrimination on our community; what we needed from government and what we could offer in support from our community. We explained that the solutions we were suggesting would benefit all minority communities and New Zealand as a whole.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern comforts a woman at the Kilbirnie mosque in Wellington today. Photo: RNZ/Ana Tovey

At that meeting, we were absolutely clear about the urgency of this. We were absolutely clear about how exhausted and close to breaking the Muslim women's leadership team were. We told them about our concerns over the rise of vitriol and the rise of the alt-right in New Zealand.

We asked them what resources were being put in to monitoring alt-right groups, something we had also asked the SIS.

I can't even explain the tension and stress we went through going into that meeting. From the government side, there were arguments about who would attend that meeting. This meeting should have been focused on our community and its needs, but the Office of Ethnic Communities (OEC) chose to make it about themselves. The then acting director resigned on the morning of the meeting and they sent no representative to hear us out.

The two of us who presented, Aliya Danzeisen and myself, had very strong concerns for our personal safety - in an emotional and reputational sense. And those fears came to fruition during the year as we were attacked in various ways and our community was divided by the actions of some public servants.

In August 2017, we met the Department of Internal Affairs in Hamilton. Again, we explained how urgent this was, how exhausted we were, what action was needed from government. We engaged with the Department of Internal Affairs and Office of Ethnic Communities over the next few months, pushing as hard as we could for what we needed, but it wasn't forthcoming. We asked for action at a national level but kept being told that any programmes would be in Waikato only.

After months of frustration, Aliya wrote to the State Services Commissioner demanding action be taken. With the support of the Race Relations Commissioner, we met with SSC In January 2018. At that time, we also met with DIA, OEC and two government ministers from the new government. Again, we talked about the effects of discrimination, the issues in our communities, the rise of the alt-right and the increasing level of vitriol we were seeing online and in person. It was the same material, and we kept repeating it.

We have received no significant funding.

After all this work, what we got was an agreement from DIA to fund a government advisory group, but they did not fund our time. Even though they knew we were still exhausted to breaking point, with the added burden of spending hours and days pushing government to act, we were expected to continue on a volunteer basis.

We had to push for funding for a report writer, and I can't say at this time where our report is at.

So here we are.

At least five years of solid government engagement across a National-led and then a Labour-led government. We begged and pleaded, we demanded. We knocked on every door we could, we spoke at every forum we were invited to.

At a major security conference in February 2018, Aliya challenged the sector: if you can spend so much on surveilling our community, why can you not spend on preventative programmes?

Yesterday, the chair of the Islamic Women's Council, Dr Maysoon Salamah, lost her son after hours of surgery. He was shot twice. Her husband was shot in the lower head and has had two surgeries. Her first words to Aliya Danzeisen were "They took my heart".

This is how a heart breaks. This is how our world is torn apart.

I would ask you to picture this: what if the shooting had been a Muslim perpetrator, and it was 50 non-Muslim New Zealanders who had been shot? Would our community be receiving the same level of support that we have today?

Imagine what the media commentary would have been like. We would not have been able to leave our homes, the level of retaliatory attacks on our community would have been swift and immediate, and the police would have struggled to provide any meaningful protection.

That was the fear that we, the leadership of the Muslim community, carried in our hearts every day. That was a major reason why we put so much time and energy into begging government to help us. Attack on our community was the second reason.

No, New Zealand media, we are not surprised. Why would we be?

I will leave you all with this: I want, I need accountability. My community wants and needs accountability. I need those public servants to sit in front of all of us who presented to them in March 2017 and tell us what they have done since. Tell us what resources and programmes you put in place. I want the politicians from both parties that we personally spoke to, to sit in front of us and tell us what they did as a result of our meetings with them.

We need answers.

* Anjum Rahman is spokesperson at Islamic Women's Council of New Zealand

PM Jacinda Ardern is to blame for the Christchurch massacre: Pontificating to the world, she failed to secure the safety of her own citizens

by Ganesh Sahathevvan

New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern was too busy lecturing Trump, Scott Morrison and the world  at large to care about securing her own country.


Her naive speech suggests that she still cannot   appreciate that when you have different cultures forced to live side by side , there will be conflict; and you will need a reinforced security and intelligence apparatus. 

Malaysia,Singapore are examples of countries that had,courtesy of the British ,multiculturalism forced upon them,and had to take the hard steps necessary to maintain peace between the races and cultures.

Singapore has even had to import a Gurkha Contingent as a deterrent;the Gurkhas are employed for their ability to execute orders without  question,and without being  troubled by communal loyalties.

END 

Reference

PM Lee: SPF outsources its work to the Nepalese

Despite having her very own trained Singaporean army for about 52 years, some of the domestic security work in Singapore are still being taken over by Nepalese Troops. Here’s why.

The recent deaths of servicemen have very much garnered nationwide attention as many questioned the safety precautions of trainings by the Singapore Armed Forces. (SAF) This is further fueled by the death of a 33 year old serviceman a few days ago, as well as the death of the actor Aloysius Pang, which had aroused a major wave of unhealthy skepticism and criticisms regarding the safety measures put in place.

In response,PM Lee has assured that he and the SAF leadership do take “safety with utmost seriousness” in a Facebook post on 15th of February.He even mentioned the importance of seeing “things in perspective when something goes wrong”.

He also added that Singaporeans “cannot outsource our security and defence to anyone else” as “we have to defend Singapore ourselves”.

Despite PM Lee stressing the importance of self-defence, which is heavily maintained by the SAF and Singapore Police force(SPF), why does Singapore still outsource some of her domestic security work to Nepalese troops, who are currently upholding peace and security in Singapore?

The GC, or Gurkha Contingent is a department of the SPF and it primarily consists of Gurkhas from Nepal. Gurkhas are Nepalese troops who used to serve under the British Army during the colonial period. These Gurkhas are well-trained, highly disciplined and very dedicated when performing their tasks. The principal role of the contingent is to be a special guard force, and it is currently used to counter terrorist forces.

These Gurkhas were critical during the 50s and 60s due to their crucial role in maintaining the peace and security during these stormy periods, which were marked by the Maria Hertogh Riots, Hock Lee Bus Riots, 1964 Racial Riots and Konfrontasi.Additionally, the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew also highly valued these Gurkhas as he expressed tremendous trust for them in his memoir ‘From Third World To The First’.

It seemed that such trust did not dwindle and continue to be projected by the government today as they continue to outsource Singapore’s security to Nepalese troops, instead of using self-trained Singaporean servicemen and regulars 100% for the job.

To such an admission, netizens do not take it kindly as many were antagonistic, actively expressing hostile statements on Facebook.

Malaysia's Minister For Finance appoints KPMG partner as "Special Officer",despite KPMG's contribution to 1MDB's losses

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Kok Seng is the Partner-in-Charge for KPMG Northern Region.  He has extensive audit, accounting and consulting experience both in Malaysia and Washington, D.C., USA. His experience is not limited to audit assignments but also covers the various corporate exercises which include corporate advisory on initial public offerings, cross border acquisitions, special issues and share valuation. He currently sits in the Penang State Shared Services and Outsourcing and Creative Multimedia Content Council.
(see http://aamc2015.usm.my/index.php/2-uncategorised

KPMG's _proudly boast on their website:

Special officer to the finance minister, Dato’ Ooi Kok Seng, who was also present, had mentioned that the government had not yet received the funds from a one-off special dividend from Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) of RM30 billion which will be used for tax refunds announced during Budget 2019. “At the moment the funds are not in as it is only a few days past the new year. However, [the public] should not worry as the finance minister has given the assurance that full refunds will be made through the special dividend,” he said.

Dato’ Ooi Kok Seng is KPMG Head (North).He seems to have won the favour of the Penang Government and the DAP, despite KPMG's 1MDB history.This excerpt from the DAP website is indicative of their relationship:

The Penang state government has chosen the internationally renowned accounting firm, KPMG and its senior partner Chartered Accountant Ooi Kok Seng, for the verification exercise and to formulate the template and presented to the public. As an independent audit firm, KPMG is required to uphold the highest standards of professional standards ensuring that it complies with the principles of objectivity, independence and no conflict of interest before undertaking any task.


KPMG's contribution to 1MDB's losses has been well documented by this writer and by Sawarak Report (see stories below).

This conflict adds to that concerning PwC, Goldman Sach's auditor for some 37 years, who have nevertheless been appointed to oversee 1MDB.

END

Don't Ask Us! - KPMG Global's Astonishing Response on 1MDB

• 24 March 2015
 
• 15

1MDB is not anything to do with us – Global Chief of KPMG, John Veihmeyer

For weeks the mantra of the chairman of 1MDB’s governing Advisory Board (Malaysia’s Prime Minister) has been that the management of the fund has been ‘cleared’, because the accounts were ‘forensically’ audited by international accountancy firms of global standing.

The firms who have given 1MDB clean bills of health have been the Malaysia branches of the accountancy giants Deloitte and KPMG.

Malaysia’s top team at KPMG – no accountability to HQ?

However, last week Sarawak Report demonstrated evidence pointing to a series of sharp practices on the part of KPMG during the audit process for the year ending March 2010.

These enabled 1MDB to conceal the loss of USD$700 million, which was the sum siphoned out of its joint venture with the little known oil company PetroSaudi.

Following this expose, the Sydney-based Malaysian investigative financial journalist, Ganesh Sahathevan, directly challenged the Global Chairman of the company, John Veihmeyer, to give his response to the allegations.

Sahathevan asked whether KPMG Global had been aware of any of the transactions relating to 1MDB outlined in the expose?  He added that:

“much of what has been reported was in the public domain since at least 2014, and hence there is also the question of why the Global Board took no action despite that fact?”

KPMG’s international image – a massive global firm

The rapid response Sahathevan received from KPMG merits reading in full, because it puts paid to any assumptions that a local branch of this ‘global network’ of accountancy firms can be relied upon to maintain any sort of acceptable standard laid down by a central authority.

The General Counsel (top lawyer) for Mr Veihmeyer states that the corporate headquarters has no involvement in the matter, because the KPMG network represents nothing more than a ‘Swiss Cooperative’ of happy Helvetic brand sharers.

In short, he explains, no one at HQ is responsible for what their fellow franchise holders get up to. They are just there to help and advise when required.

Dear Mr Sahathevan

I refer to your email below addressed to Mr John Veihmeyer, Global Chairman, KPMG International Cooperative (KPMG International).

I am the General Counsel of KPMG International and am responding on behalf of Mr Veihmeyer.

KPMG International is a Swiss Cooperative. Member firms of the KPMG network of independent firms are affiliated with KPMG International. KPMG International provides no client services. No member firm has any authority to obligate or bind KPMG International or any other member firm vis-à-vis third parties, nor does KPMG International have any such authority to bind or obligate any member firm.

KPMG International does not have any relationship with, or connection to, 1MDB”.

Yours faithfully

Tom Wethered

Malaysians and others, who had assumed that accreditation by KPMG represented some form of guarantee of high standards; quality control; centralised monitoring and disciplinary process to ensure high standards of accountancy practice must therefore stand disappointed.

According to KPMG’s top legal eagle, theirs is a form of franchise that has its cake and eats it at the same time.

Name bearers get to carry the brand, but without any form of accountability whatsoever:

“nor does KPMG International have any such authority to bind or obligate any member firm” [Tom Wethered]

Franchise without accountability?

If a Malaysian were to find dog meat in his McDonald’s burger in KL, he would expect to receive some response from the company HQ from under its golden arches in California – and doubtless he would.

By contrast, if KPMG Malaysia assists in the cover-up of a billion dollar heist of public money, it turns out that their global HQ in Amsterdam merely refers you to the cantons of Switzerland and their company’s new corporate structure, which is accountability free.

Having their cake and eating it 

Mr Wethered’s response that “KPMG International does not have any relationship with, or connection to, 1MDB”  represents a stark contrast, however, with the firm’s own publicity material.

The KPMG website and numerous articles make reference instead to the guarantee of quality that their brand lends to its affiliates across the world.

KPMG’s own website, under the banner line “Acting With Integrity”, declares:

“KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. We have more than 155,000 outstanding professionals working together to deliver value in 155 countries worldwide.”

On the other hand, scrutiny of this KPMG website soon makes plain that behind the fine words and sentiments there is indeed what appears to be a significant dearth of actual governance in this corporate structure:

ABOVE ALL, WE ACT WITH INTEGRITY

We are constantly striving to uphold the highest professional standards, provide sound advice and rigorously maintain our independence….

The KPMG Global website concedes that its Head Officers provide policies, even regulations. But, there is no mention of enforcement.

The Global Board is the principal governance and oversight body. The key responsibilities of the Board include approving long-term strategy, protecting and enhancing the KPMG brand, and approving policies and regulations

There is no single line of accountability within the organisation.

Leadership

Internationally, the affairs of KPMG are the responsibility of several bodies.

Aspirations, but can they be enforced?

The controls that would lead the third party readers of its audit reports to feel comforted that quality control is enforced, appear to be missing, as indicated by the letter sent by KMPG’s top counsel.

Although there is a deluge of information about the values and quality that this network of affiliated firms is “striving to achieve”, there seems to be a lack of clear accountability within the structure of the organisation.

Without accountability and enforcement structures the high values and claims of integrity that pack out KPMG’s corporate messaging are surely effectively meaningless?

What better example than this latest abdication of responsibility over the scandal of 1MDB?

KPMG’s Positive PR

The legal counsel of KPMG seems therefore to be entirely correct in his statement that the global headquarters can wash its hands entirely of this little fracas over in Malaysia.

Star Interview with former Global Head Michael Andrew presented a very different state of affairs.

Yet, as Mr Sahathevan and others suggest, this is not the public face of the company.

Certainly, the ‘Swiss Cooperative’s’ corporate PR does not accurately represent this state of affairs and basic lack of governance.

Take for example the recent ‘Up Close And Personal’ article by Malaysia’s Star Newspaper about the role of the recently retired Global Chairman of KPMG.

In his interview Mr Andrew told the Star that clients in KL had the right to expect the same level of service as in Europe.

He also said that the company upheld its “duty to the broader community”:

KPMG’s brand, Andrew says, is all about being independent and objective because the firm and its employees has a public interest of responsibility to the broader community.

“We have to ensure that we uphold the governance standards in every country for our multi-national clients. They expect the same standards in Kuala Lumpur as they do in Johannesburg, Frankfurt or New York,” he says.

He adds that corporate governance defines the KPMG brand. “If we don’t meet the governance standards, then people won’t have confidence in our business. Integrity is at the heart of everything we do.

“This is ensuring that we understand that our duty is to the broader community than just to any particular client or particular transaction. Because if we do some work, which turns out to be incorrect, it’ll affect our global brand,” he says.

Every three months, KPMG employees are required to sign a declaration to maintain their independence around their audit clients. [The Star Online 10th Aug 2013]

However, despite that commitment to the broader community, in the case of 1MDB the public was never informed about the siphoning of $700 million in public funds out of the fund, thanks to KPMG Malaysia’s accountancy practices.

And now it turns out that KPMG Global regards itself as having no responsibility at all in the matter.

Were it to be more widely recognised that KPMG Global exerts so little quality control over its branches, the reputation on which this ‘cooperative’ relies might very well lose a lot of its lustre.

Maika and the Oriental Assurance Capital sale: Trustees led by Gnanalingam have no right to the proceeds ; RM 145 Million sent to Gnanalingam's Pembinaan Redzai should be clawed back;together with Tune Insurance IPO profits

by Ganesh Sahatevan

                                               
                                  MAIKA'S SAVIOURS:THE TRUSTEES

Tan Sri G.Gnanalingam

Ravin Ponniah

Tan Sri Ir. Kunasingam 

                                                               A/L V. Sittampalam

                                                               Dato’ N. Sadhasivan 

                                                                           
                                                                                Datuk R. Karunakaran

The Maika  rescue was initiated via a  trust GT Resoruces Sdn Bhd, and the trustees were the following persons :


Gnanalingam said GT Resources, run by a board of trustees chaired by him and comprising Datuk Kuna Sithampalan, Bank Negara and Petronas director Datuk N. Sadhasivan, ex-Malaysian Industrial Development Authority director-general Datuk R. Karunakaran and special officer in the Prime Minister's Department Ravin Ponniah, had already obtained 12 per cent of the shares held by the Maika management.

(Maika payout by July 31;23 April 2010New Straits Times)

This morning Sarawak Report has shown how some RM 145 Million, being the proceeds from the sale of Maika's then primary asset, its stake in Oriental Assurance Capital was paid over by Maika to Gnanalingam's private company , Pembinaan Redzai Sdn Bhd.

That money needs to be clawed back, and the clawback should include any profits made by the trustees from the Tune Insurance IPO.

END 

Maika Papers Raise Further Concerns Over Shareholders' Missing Money

• 13 March 2019
 
• 0

Sarawak Report has viewed further documents that have so far remained hidden from the public relating to the disposal of Maika Holdings assets by supposed corporate ‘white knights’ deputed by the former government to ‘bail out’ the struggling fund.

The ‘rescue’ back in 2010 included a promise that any profits from the disposal of the company’s assets would be distributed amongst some sixty six thousand original shareholders of the fund – mostly members of the Malaysian Indian Congress party, linked to BN, who had received a paltry return on their investments over several years.

These papers indicate that in recent weeks liquidators have expressed acute concern that huge sums of cash arising from the sale of those assets went to the wrong place, namely a company owned by one of the said ‘white knights’ G Gnanalingam, instead of Maika Holdings itself (in order to be distributed to shareholders as was promised).

Loan at the centre of the dispute was from one of Mr Gnanalingan’s companies Pembinaan Redzai Sdn Bhd to G Team Resources & Holdings Sdn Bhd, which he set up to buy out Maika Holdings

Sarawak Report understands that the matter has now been referred to the police and MACC investigators, following a series of legal interchanges between the liquidators and G Gnanalingam viewed by Sarawak Report.

“Huge Mistake”

At the heart of the issue is what liquators described in a letter dated as late as September 4th of last year as a “huge mistake” on the part of previous managers of Maika Holdings, whom they say “wrongly transferred” the staggering sum of RM145,753,073.28 to Gnanalingam’s company Pembinaan Redzai Sdn Bhd, which had advanced a loan of RM140 million to buy out Maika shares.

The company that received the loan, G Team Resources & Holdings Sdn Bhd, was also owned by Gnanlingam and was the entity authorised by Maika’s board (with the blessing of the government) to buy up the majority of Maika shares in 2010 as part of the ‘bail out’ plan for the floundering fund which was failing to pay dividends to its thousands of modest shareholders and had stopped producing accounts.

G Team used the RM140 million to buy out the majority of those ordinary shareholders, offering them just 80% of the original share price they had paid in for when the fund was launched in the 1980s at RM1.00 a share.

Publicly, Mr Gnanalingam, the board and the government made clear that any later profits to be raised from the sale of the fund’s remaining assets (most particularly a slice of land and a profitable insurance company) would subsequently also be returned to the self same original shareholders.

This was because Gnanalingam had been appointed to the task, without the discussion of other options or tenders, on the basis that he was acting as a “trustee” for the benefit of the shareholders only:

“G Team is supported by a Cabinet committee set up by the Prime Minister [Najib] which includes HSS Integrated executive director Datuk Kuna Sitthampalan, Bank Negara and Petroliam Nasional Bhd director Datuk N. Sadasivan, former Mida director-general Datuk R. Karunakaran and Prime Minister’s Department special officer Ravin Ponniah.
“They will become trustees of Maika when we take over the company,” Gnanalingam said.
[How it was explained at the time – Star newspaper]

However, according to the letter sent by the liquidator, when the majority of the insurance company Oriental Capital Assurance Berhad (OCA) was indeed sold to Tune Insurance Holdings (part of the Tony Fernandes controlled group of companies) the above sum of over RM145 million was then transferred by cheque straight back to Pembinaan Redzai Sdn Bhd as an apparent repayment plus interest – rather than to Maika itself for proper distribution.

G Team itself meanwhile acquired 3.75% of the shares in insurance giant, for RM7,379,129.13.

Letter from the liquidator to Gnanalingan as owner of Pembinaan Redzai

It appears that Mr G Gnanalingam has refused to comply with the requests of the liquidators to rectify the “huge mistake” made back in 2015, which clearly meant that what profits there were from the sale of the insurance company to Tune were not distributed as was the declared intention.

There is another problem linked to this thorny issue, as several commentators have pointed out, which is that the valuation of the insurance giant at the time of that hasty sale appears to have been woefully underpriced. Tune Insurance (comprising mainly OCA) was floated a year later after the sale in 2012 for a hundred million dollars soon amassing a market capitalisation of RM1.2 billion.

That meant vast profits for Tune and G Team, which retained shares. It is understood that family members of Mr Gnanalinghan had also been absorbed onto the board of Tune Insurance.  However, none of these profits went towards swelling the miserable pay out originally provided to the ordinary shareholders.

A separate issue linked to the list of concerns surrounding Maika’s unusual ‘bail out’ relates to the disposal of money owed to some 5,800 shareholders of the fund (6.9%) who did not claim their pay out.  The approximately Rm7 million owing to them was not paid over to the public exchequer via Bank Negara, as demanded by the law, according to information available to the liquidators.

“It cost some RM79 million to pay off the shareholders” says one source, who has researched the documents passed to the MACC, “yet some RM179 million was raised from the land sale and the sale of OCA. It means certain entities kept over RM100 million”.

And that was before the floatation of OCA

TMJ & rulers are right to be concerned, and Wisma Putra is fudging-Malaysia ratifying Rome Statute can have consequences for the rulers;even Australia has sought to strictly define and limit the operation of the Rome.Statute of The ICC.

by Ganesh Saahthevan 

HRH Crown Prince of Johor@HRHJohorII

Yes. Kedudukan Raja-Raja Melayu mungkin tidak relevan lagi selepas ini dan kedaulatan Raja-Raja akan pasti tergugat. Sekaligus ini akan memberi impak kepada status orang Melayu dan agama Islam di Malaysia.

Friends of Johor@FriendOfJohor

@HRHJohorII
Tunku, betul ke kedaulatan Raja-Raja Melayu sudah tergugat akibat kerajaan Malaysia menandatangani penyertaan sebagai negara ahli Statut Rome (Rome Statute) seperti yang ditulis di....https://www.projekmm.com/news/pendapat/2019/03/05/statut-rom-gugat-kuasa-agong-fareed-mohd-hassan/1729404 …

1,889

9:18 PM - Mar 8, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

As reported by Malaysiakini:

Wisma Putra has assured that the position of the monarchy will not be threatened after Malaysia acceded to the Rome Statute, a treaty governing the International Criminal Court (ICC).

This came after Johor crown prince Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim claimed that the Malay rulers may no longer be relevant after Malaysia acceded to the treaty.

"Prior to joining the Rome Statute, the government had conducted an in-depth study on various aspects.

"The government is confident that the decision will not affect the Yang di-Pertuan Agong's position and immunity," Wisma Putra said in a statement today.

On Friday, Tunku Ismail was asked by the "Friends of Johor" Twitter account if the Rome Statute would threaten the monarchy.

He replied: "Yes, the position of the Malay rulers may no longer be relevant after this and the sovereignty of the rulers will surely be threatened. As a result, it will impact the status of Malays and Islam in Malaysia."

However, even  the Australian Government, which governs  a nation and system far more liberal than Malaysia, where there is no national religion and Queen Elizabeth II is, in effect,  head of state in name only;chose to define  its ratification of the Rome Statute with a number of express declarations: 

Australia's instrument of ratification includes a declaration affirming the primacy of Australia's criminal jurisdiction in relation to crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court. It outlines the conditions under which a person in Australian custody or control would be surrendered to the Court and clarifies Australia's interpretation of the crimes within the Statute. The declaration has full effect in Australian law and is not a reservation. It reinforces safeguards already built into the Statute to preserve Australian sovereignty over our criminal jurisdiction.

While there can be argument as to the legal effect of the declarations, for practical purposes these statements by then Australian Prime Minister John Howard are instructive, and show how Wisma Putra and its legal advisers have been careless,in the context of Malaysia's unique religious and social framework:

Howard defends ICC decision	PRINT FRIENDLY	EMAIL STORY
The World Today Archive - Thursday, 20 June , 2002  00:00:00 Reporter: ELEANOR HALL: The Prime Minister has just emerged from the party room meeting we heard about a moment ago to speak to the media about the International Criminal Court. Here's part of what he had to say: JOHN HOWARD: I'm here with my colleagues to announce that the Government has decided to proceed to ratification of the International Criminal Court Statute. The decision has been reached after a very lengthy but beneficial and widespread consultation within the Government parties. The decision to proceed to ratification will be accompanied by a number of very important and firm stipulations. At the time of ratification, Australia will deposit a declaration, which states a number of things, and I'll be releasing with my formal press statement a copy of this declaration. The declaration will reaffirm the primacy of Australian law and the Australian legal system in relation to the prosecution of offences under the legislation giving affect to the statute. It will be declared that no person can be arrested on a warrant issued by the court, or surrendered to the court without the prior consent of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth. It will also declare Australia's understanding that the offences of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes under the International Criminal Court Statute will be interpreted in accordance with Australian law. The matters in the declaration will be incorporated in the legislation, implementing our obligations under the International Criminal Court Statute. In other words, they will not be bear pious declarations, they will in fact become part of Australian law and therefore they will govern all behaviour in relation to Australian residence, or people in Australia, all within the control of Australia, such as example, our Defence Forces serving overseas, will remain completely subject to Australian law. There's a further important stipulation that will be put in the enabling legislation and that is that no prosecution within Australia can be launched without prior consent of the Attorney General and indeed it must be launched in his or her name. That means effectively that the capacity for frivolous or vexatious private prosecution or interest prosecution can be stymied by the Attorney General taking them over and filing a no bill, according to his or her determination, of course of the merits of such prosecution. We believe that the International Criminal Court will make a valuable further addition to the efforts of the world to bring to justice people who perpetrate atrocious crimes, and it's in that spirit that Australia has decided to ratify. REPORTER: Do you expect any of your colleagues to cross the floor? JOHN HOWARD: Look, that's ultimately a matter for them. Let me put it this way – I was greatly encouraged, even warmed, by the response in the party room this morning. There are a number of my colleagues, as happens on a lot of things, will retain reservations about the Government's decision. But having seen an exhaustive and very democratic process of consultation used will support the decision. END