Mediaboss Marketing

February 12, 2013

by Terence Netto@http://www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT: So you are a mercenary, lah, quipped judge Richard Malanjum from the bench yesterday while Muhammad Shafee Abdullah was holding forth.

The Senior Counsel was expatiating on the list of parties and politicians he had appeared for in the course of a long career a variety, he submitted, that would attest his professional skills more than his partisan affiliations.

A titer of laughter ran through the crowd at the Federal Court as Malanjum interjected to make the comment. But the matter at hand a defendants right to a fair trial was not a trifling one.

It concerned whether Shafee, who has been prolific in advocacy of clients regarded as adverse to the defence, could perform without presumptive bias the Deputy Public Prosecutors role in the governments appeal of the High Court acquittal for sodomy of Anwar Ibrahim.

Malanjum (left), Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak, together with four others, was on a panel to decide a defence application to disqualify Shafee from appearing as DPP.

Malanjum made the remark as Shafee was attempting to rebut the defence argument that he was a political partisan, a hack with a bias for UMNO briefs.

Anwars lawyers had argued that Shafees past advocacy on behalf of a political entity seen as patently adverse towards their client had saddled him with bias sufficient to disqualify him for the role of DPP in the governments appeal of Anwars acquittal.

Hearing of the appeal is scheduled for today and tomorrow at the Court of Appeal.

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A word is anything I say it means