APRIL 29 — What has the Malaysian prosecution system denigrated into? A lawmaker was hauled to court for using the word ‘celaka Umno’! And the charge was under no less than the pernicious Sedition Act. On conviction a long jail term could follow.
Now, this word is used rather loosely and freely — in common parlance. Rude maybe, but hardly criminal.
What does this expression mean anyway? A cursory google search gives a clue. It primarily means unlucky, unfortunate, disaster; and can be seen as an obscene word or an insult like “damn you’. An example enlightens: Wah so celaka lah — my car broke down yesterday.
Slightly more derogatory meanings are also listed: a****** or s***! The former implying a person who behaves like an ass — in such a silly way as to create a bad impression; the latter is described as an offensive word applied to someone you don’t like.
Lewis Carrol has something interesting to say on the use of words in the all-time classic, Alice in Wonderland:
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.” So the AG (as the ultimate prosecution chief, although his role in this charge is not known) chose to give it a meaning that it carried a seditious tendency — a word that, in this context, suggests a tendency to give rise to racial upheaval. But is it not also capable of a benign, or a non-criminal, meaning? It is a cardinal principle of criminal law that if there are 2 plausible interpretations then the one that favours the accused must apply.
Well, at least the court has restored a semblance of balance to this otherwise needless charge. The judge acquitted the state assemblyman without even calling for his defence. He ruled that these words were not seditious in nature the prosecution could not prove that these words could provoke a breach of the peace.
“While the prosecution has proved that he has said those words in a speech, it has failed to prove the seditious element as Umno is not a racial group but a political group,” said the Judge.
There are similar charges pending against the same assemblyman; and others. Perhaps it’s time for the prosecuting authorities to use their rather limited resources to pursuing the real criminals.
*Gurdial is a former law professor at the University of Malaya.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
