JAWAPAN LISAN DEWAN NEGARA TUNKU ABDUL AZIZ BIN IBRAHIM PADA 3 MEI 2010
SOALAN:
Tunku Abdul Aziz bin Tunku Ibrahim minta MENTERI LUAR NEGERI menyatakan halangan-halangan secara terperinci sehingga melengahkan ratifikasi ke atas ICCPR, ICESCR, CERD dan CAT serta langkah-langkah yang telah dan sedang diambil untuk mempercepatkan proses ratifikasi ini.
JAWAPAN:
Tuan Yang Dipertua,
Saya mengucapkan terima kasih kepada YB Tuan Tunku Abdul Aziz bin Tunku Ibrahim ke atas soalan yang telah dikemukakan.
2. Seperti Dewan yang mulia sedia maklum, Kerajaan sedang dalam proses mengkaji dan menimbang kemungkinan untuk Malaysia menyertai instrumen-instrumen hak asasi manusia tersebut. Namun demikian, bukanlah mudah untuk Kerajaan meratifikasi sesuatu instrumen hak asasi manusia. Proses ini memakan masa yang agak lama kerana sebelum keputusan dibuat untuk meratifikasikan instrumen-instrumen tersebut, Kerajaan perlu memastikan bahawa perundangan Negara ini adalah selaras dengan peruntukan-peruntukan di dalam instrumen-instrumen antarabangsa berkaitan hak asasi manusia. Kerajaan juga perlu memberi pertimbangan yang menyeluruh dan mendalam dengan mengambil kira factor sosial, budaya, sejarah serta masyarakat Malaysia yang berbilang kaum, sebelum menyertai instrumen-instrumen berkenaan. Adalah tidak wajar Kerajaan mengambil keputusan untu menyertai instrumen-instrumen ini denan mengemukakan reservasi. Bahkan tindakan seperti ini tidak digalakkan oleh Pertubuhan Bangsa-bangsa Bersatu (PBB).
Ke arah ini, beberapa siri Mesyuarat Antara Agensi telah diadakan untuk megkaji secara terperinci kedudukan Malaysia berhubung kandungan instrumen-instrumen yang masih belum disertai. Mesyuarat Antara Agensi ini, antara lainnya, menghalusi peruntukan-peruntukan yang sedia ada dalam instrumen-instrumen antarabangsa tersebut yang dengan izin, prima facie atau on the face of it berpotensi untuk mencabar dasar-dasar sedia ada serta mengkompromikan keselamatan Negara. Aspek keagamaan juga perlu dititik beratkan dalam memastikan kandungan triti-triti tersebut selars dengan ajaran dan fahaman dan tidak bercanggah dengan mana-mana agama di Malaysia.
4. oleh yang demikian, Kerajaan sememangnya berhasrat untuk menyertai instrumen-instrumen tersebut apabila langkah-langkah yang dinyatakan di atas telah disempurnakan. Adalah tidak wajar untuk menuduh Kerajaan cuba melengahkan usaha-usaha dalam meratifikasi instrument-instrumen berkenaan.
Sekian, terima kasih.
Najib Abdul Razak will be remembered as the most controversial prime ministerial aspirant this nation has ever known. The deadweight political baggage he is lugging around, as he sets his course on what he fervently hopes will be the last lap to the best address in the country, is enough to make a grown man cry, but not Najib, the single minded man of destiny according to his wife, Rosmah.
He seems to take his travails in his stride. Is he not, again, according to Rosmah, predestined to occupy the highest political office in the land? I am inclined to think that there may be some truth in what Rosmah has been saying about his destiny because she has already begun, to preen herself, so the gossip goes, to play the part of Malaysia’s First Lady.
Unfortunately for her, and others who might harbour a similar ambition in the deep recesses of their fantasy, our country is a monarchy, albeit a constitutional one (may it always remain that way) and as such, the First Lady is our queen, not the wife of the prime minister. Her confident prediction of Najib’s political ascendancy and immortality could, in the event, prove to be just a little premature given the murky political waters he is wading through.
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Whenever I think of my friend Karpal Singh, I am reminded of my great headmaster, the late Dr. Frank J. Rawcliffe who taught us the importance of being consistent, even if meant sometimes upsetting some people. You may say what you want about Karpal’s manner, his magisterial pronouncements often delivered with a great roar full of fiery passion, but you cannot accuse him of being inconsistent in the position he has taken over the years on matters involving both personal and public ethical principles. While Karpal clearly recognises that there are, in politics, no permanent friends or foes, he believes devoutly in the importance of “permanent principles.” Unprincipled politics as we have seen in Malaysia can very quickly degenerate into unmitigated disasters. The unsavoury Perak affair is a case in point.
I believe in, and will fight for, my right to say what I like within the law. I naturally accept willingly the accompanying responsibility that such rights impose on me. I should expect to be free from threats of violence for my views, and I was, therefore, shocked to see on TV a disgraceful act of intolerance by a group of UMNO youth, and for a second or two I thought I was watching a familiar scene from a 1935 newsreel showing the storm troopers of the Third Reich pouncing on a hapless Jew in a wheel chair. On this occasion, it was in the hallowed grounds of the national parliament, no less that the brave Malay warriors chose to flex their muscle. The only difference was that UMNO’s storm troopers were not wearing the dreaded brown shirts of their German counterparts of days gone by.
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