N.H. Chan has spent 4,113 words to decide on the question whether words spoken by Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh were of a “seditious tendency”. Certain words in the legal definition will tend to be seditious once they “bring hatred or contempt” or they “excite disaffection”, etc.
Chan’s defence of Lim and Karpal is an exercise in unpacking dictionary words for their legal meanings. The three operative words are “intention,” “sedition,” and “tendency”, plus their related verb and adverbial forms. Chan’s argument is tedious because intent and tendency are conflated. So the way to see what he had done is to split it into two: (a) what makes for intent, hence, seditious intention and (b) what tends to be seditious and what not, hence, what constitutes seditious tendency.
Seditious intention, the wording in other laws, are in Malaysia replaced by “seditious tendency”. Yet the same word, intention, is sprinkled into the various clauses. In spite, or because, of this word-switch, Chan’s argument takes apart the two words, intent and tendency, then accepts that intent need not be proved. However, he does not say whether intention is a part of tendency, because tendency speaks of propensity, a desire, an inclination towards some objective, which is the intent. One is ongoing; the other is a final, end state.
Regardless, once Chan is done with un-bundling the word “intention”, and discarding it after that, he goes on to (b). That is, what goes with words that would tend to be seditious? The answer is in Section 3 of the Sedition Act 1948. That has six categories to put anybody away for a long time, one of which, (f), is widely deployed; it says, “promote feelings of ill will”.
Hereon, that is, at part (b), Chan’s defence of Lim and Karpal is straightforward. It rests squarely on flipping the argument around, which to the logician is known as double false: the proposition of the charge is rendered false if it is true that the proposition is false. Say, for example, Lim is accused of bringing something “into hatred or contempt”. This is false once it is true he was merely “pointing out an error”, and this is exempt from the crime of sedition.
Chan’s argument is not without weaknesses (what exactly is the charge against Lim?). In another, more generalized way of phrasing Chan’s dissertation the law is not what words say they are, but what the judge says they ought to be. In this respect, the fate of Lim and Karpal is not even with the judge because guilty or not guilty then becomes a matter of luck (if not malice). Land with a sympathetic judge you are free; land with another you’re doom.
If the pain inflicted on Lim and Karpal is not on a guilty or not guilty outcome, what then is? It is the charge itself, is it not? It is the charge with all its attendant consequences, so guilty or not guilty is only part of the projection into terror unknown. This is to suggest that the law is an instrument of terror, in their cases, politically motivated terror. Chan knows this, or ought to know this. But the net effects to be drawn from Chan’s dissertation are these:
- It once more paints a halo around the law and proclaims its sanctity, but not that it has become an instrument of terror.
- It suggests there is nothing wrong with the law, so law enforcement is merely misguided rather than malicious and capricious, and so to be a reliable policeman you’ll have to be first and foremost a judge.
- It speaks of impenetrable meanings and allusions out of reach of common people so you better stay out of the streets if you are not a lawyer. Or, hire a lawyer before you speak up.
All that says why Chan’s dissertation, while noteworthy, also detracts from the harsh reality that numerous Malaysian laws are not just bad; they are plainly oppressive. Much of what is fundamental to this country’s problems are rooted in such laws, the Constitution included:
- Thinking aloud is now a widespread crime, otherwise known in Orwellian-speak as thought crimes. You need go nowhere, nor go anywhere with a weapon. Merely to sit in a wheel chair, or in your house, speak up, and you’ll land into trouble, because the law is no longer the arbiter between state and person. The law visits you with the greatest of all Malaysian terrors: a knock on the door. It actually facilitates the charge, therefore the oppression.
- Sedition goes with the numerous speech, blasphemy and defamation laws that exist with countless other legal colorations one finds in the UK, India and so on. Malaysia is one of the biggest importers of an entire legal regime, all having to do with mere words, inspired by doctrinaire institutions, religious from Cairo and Riyadh, secular from London. None are intended to be helpful to common people so certain social classes of people draw power and impunity from such a legal apparatus. Chan’s dissertation amply demonstrates it.
- Sedition, like racism, is a charge for which there is no defense. If, as policeman, I only have to “feel” to be condescended to, or to feel ill will, then I may launch a charge against the politician I despised listening to. My allegation is frivolous? Prove my “feeling” false. This is everybody’s dilemma, especially those on police bail for myriad offenses. The moment a person is charged he is guilty until proven guilty, regardless of what they teach students in law schools.
Under such a legal regime, judges and lawyers can no longer cite the excuse, “but-I-didn’t-make-the-law” (Auschwitz camp guards employ the same logic), and then proceed to pronounce life and death, dress up inanities in obfuscating judgements, collect fat fees, and continue as attendants to oppression. The law is seditious.
