On 29 May 2008, Datuk Deva Mohd Ridzam, former ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxemburg and Cambodia concluded the following when he wrote about the Pulau Batu Puteh's case -
"In the light of the foregoing, to criticise the government for taking the matter to the ICJ without a strong case is also unfair, to say the least.
There are, of course, risks to be run in bringing the matter before the ICJ. But the question is, was there any other practical alternative? Refusing to let our case be heard at the World Court would have suggested Malaysia lacked confidence in its claim’."
On 30 May 2008, Mr. Haris Ibrahim, in response to Datuk Deva wrote the following -
"Here, I’ve got to say we don’t know enough to say, ‘Yes, Gani & team did right by us’."
Well, I think I know enough to say exactly the contrary. It’s funny how people who dont know always have more to say than those who do. I think the Malaysian legal team had put up all their best in the case and based on the Judgment, Malaysia won more legal arguments than Singapore. It is unfortunate however that while we won on the legal arguments, we still did not get Pulau Batu Puteh.
One clue though, since you are diligent enough to reproduce the list of the Malaysian delegation, didn’t it occur to you that the Malaysian team is headed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rather than the country’s top legal fraternity.
Therefore, I do not think that the grouses, suspicions or questions on the handling of the case should be directed to the Attorney General’s Chambers but rather to the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs. Obviously they are in control of the whole affairs.
I'm indeed very suprised myself that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hardly makes any comments on the case. They remain equally silent whenever comments are directed to the legal team. Strange.
Mr. Haris' article can be viewed at:
1 comment:
How do we know that the AGs team is represented by the country's top notch lawyers? Is AGs son top of the class? I heard no where near. I know one guy that is top of the 98 batch that was in the team but then left. Anything went wrong in our legal institution? I had also a friend who was with Sarawak AG but left with 7 others immediately follow suit.
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