Augustine Paul was a judge with a mission – to convict Anwar Ibrahim. He had been handpicked and elevated from junior judge to High Court judge specially to hear Anwar’s corruption case. In the end he did not disappoint his political masters, he gave the guilty verdict they demanded and handed down the savage sentence that had been pre-determined by Mahathir. But how do you convict a man when the weight of evidence point to his innocence and the prosecution’s case is as flimsy as a house of cards? There was only one way…to betray justice in the most cavalier manner. In reaching his inevitable verdict he had to trample over truth, justice and legal jurisprudence in the crudest possible manner. He ran a banal kangaroo court which was so blatantly biased that it will forever shame the nation in the eyes of the world.

Unlike Ariffin Jaka presiding over Anwar’s sodomy trial, Augustine Paul had no finesse nor artfulness in conducting the mock trial. He blatantly tied the hands of the defense team but allowed astonishing leeway to the prosecution. Political conspiracy was rejected as "fanciful" although Anwar was a politician who had fallen from grace with the Prime Minister. This is like saying that it is fanciful to suppose that a man had fallen down the steps when he is found groaning in pain at the bottom of a flight of wet and slippery steps. But this is exactly what this dirty judge had been insisting to the defense team.

On the matter of evidence, he brusquely brushed aside material evidence and important witnesses presented by the defense but allowed the prosecution to pull in a soiled mattress into court as if the name of persons using it was inscribed there. He dismissed evidence from direct witnesses who testified in favour of Anwar as hearsay but allowed double hearsay evidence from the prosecution. Defense lawyers were threatened with contempt of court for pursuing lines of evidence uncomfortable to the prosecution. Lawyer Zainur Zakaria was jailed for presenting a sworn affidavit that the Attorney-General’s office had conspired to browbeat Datuk Nallakarupan to falsely testify against Anwar. Does contempt of court extend to upholding the honour of the prosecution team?

If a man is accused of taking illegal steps to cover up something he had done, shouldn’t the court establish beyond reasonable doubt that he had really committed the crimes or actions that he was purported to have tried to cover up? But Augustine Paul was not interested in finding out the truth, he was hell bent on convicting Anwar. He allowed the prosecution to amend the charges at a late stage in the trial to relieve them of having to prove that Anwar committed sodomy and adultery. It was a grave miscarriage of justice that goes against natural justice and common sense. You cannot convict a man of trying to cover up a crime if you cannot prove that he has committed the crime. But an renegade judge like Paul would say that it was irrelevant by adopting a highly blinkered view. An easy to understand account of how judge Augustine Paul conducted his court may be this:

Judge: Indeed, the notion that he acted in self-defense is fanciful. I forbid this line of defense.

Defense: We will call many witnesses whose testimonies will show that my client is not guilty of any wrong-doing and in fact acted very reasonably under the circumstances.

Judge: You must clear your witnesses with me before you call them. Give me a summary of what they are going to testify and I will decide whether they are relevant or not.

Defense: Your honour, we want to call two witnesses who can testify that they saw Mr. X threatening Mr. A with a an iron rod.

Judge: I disallow these witnesses. Their evidence is irrelevant. The accused is on trial for punching a man. I only want to establish whether he landed the blow or not.

Defense: We have a witness who can testify that he heard Mr. X threatening to harm my client a week before the incident.

Judge: This is hearsay. Nobody can verify what he heard.

Defense: We would like to submit a taped evidence of the exchange.

Judge: I disallow the taped evidence. We cannot be sure the voices are those of the defendant and the plaintiff.

Prosecution: Your honour, we will call witnesses to testify that the accused was a sexual pervert who had many affairs with men and women.

Judge: This is very relevant evidence. Please proceed.

Prosecution: We hereby tender a box of condoms found in the defendant’s house.

Judge: This is important evidence. It should be displayed in court for all to see.

Prosecution: We present our main witness who will testify that Mr A. assaulted a defenseless and helpless man without any provocation.

Defense: Your honour, we have copies of a signed agreement between the plaintiff and his main witness which reveals a conspiracy to give false evidence.

Judge: How dare you! You will withdraw the document and apologize to the plaintiff or I will jail you for contempt of court.

Prosecution: Your honour, we apply to amend the charges against the accused to "punching a man" instead of "punching a man to prevent embarrassing disclosure of a sexual nature".

Defense: I object! The prosecution has submitted all sort of unsubstantiated allegations about my client’s character and sexual indiscretions. We must be given the right to cross-examine and refute the allegations.

Judge: The amendment is allowed in the interest of justice. As I’ve said, the only point of contention is whether he punched the plaintiff or not. The court is not interested in why he did it or the circumstances surrounding the act.

Defense: We cannot refute that he did punched the plaintiff but we contend that he acted in self….

Judge: This is irrelevant! If you pursue this line of defense I will jail you for contempt of court.

Judge: After carefully examining the evidence before me, I pronounce the defendant guilty.

Defense: Your honour, my client will not mitigate because he maintains his innocence. Mr. X was not badly hurt. He did not even deem it necessary seek medical treatment. His sentence should merit only a fine.

Judge: Punching a man is a serious offence. I must uphold justice as I am answerable to God. I hereby sentence you to 6 years jail.

Politican: He was convicted in a public trial by an independent court. He had the best team of lawyers to defend him.

Politician’s Lapdog: The people should accept the judgement of the court. The judgement ran to 300 pages

If the proceedings of this imaginary trial sicken you, you will be no less revolted to know that this was essentially what occurred in Anwar’s trial. Throughout this banal mockery of justice, Augustine Paul sought to protect his political masters from embarrassment. Evidence from defense witnesses were cut off with cries of "irrelevant!" and parts of the trial were blacked out from the press in order to protect Mahathir and his band of conspirators. Paul certainly danced to their political tune. He bent over backwards to comply to their wishes and in his eagerness to please them he turned the trial into a grotesque political circus.

At the end of this crude parody of justice, this monster judge handed down a savage sentence of 6 years which does not include the 6 months that Anwar had been in remand. Even if Anwar was guilty of the charges, how can this savage sentence be justified for a case of technical corruption in which no money, property or shares was involved and nobody had been hurt? If a man who tried to clear his name from malicious slanderers had overstepped his bounds then the proper sentence should be a fine or a very light custody sentence but not six and a half years in the slammer. Only recently a Datuk whom the judge ruled had willfully run over his wife causing her death had been given six months jail so the contrast could not be greater. But Augustine Paul was merely a puppet of a vengeful Mahathir who wanted to finish off Anwar politically.

What would prompt a man to subvert all his internal principles and morals and knowingly send an innocent man to jail? Is money and power enough? It appears that Augustine Paul was not even offered those, he seemed to have sold his soul for a pittance. For a mere promotion to High Court judge he was willing to bludgeon justice and blacken his name until it descended into a cesspool of slime and muck. He sold the morality of his country away for a mere career. Among his peers, he has become a pariah, a crooked judge who mangled the justice he was supposed to uphold. His children are shamed and future descendents of Augustine Paul will cringe in embarrassment when his name is mentioned. Perhaps his name will be synonymous with a kangaroo court and people will say, "it was an Augustine Court" when they want to convey their disgust for an unfair trial.

Although Augustine Paul had obeyed the wishes of his political masters, what has he accomplished for them? He has put away Mahathir’s political enemy for a long time but the clumsy trial only serves to re-affirmed and highlight the subservience of the judiciary. The impression both inside and outside the country that it was a deeply flawed political trial is widespread in the minds of the public. Even the United States State Department sharply criticized the Anwar trial as an example of human rights abuses in Malaysia. One does not need to be a legal expert to know that justice had been mangled and trampled and Augustine Paul was Mahathir’s puppet judge who dragged the judiciary to new lows. Mahathir’s intention to use Anwar’s conviction to villify him and erode his support base backfires. Indeed the trial has dirtied Mahathir as much as his puppet judge. Mahathir’s legacy has been tainted but for Augustine Paul we reserve our utmost contempt for a man who betrayed justice in the name of dispensing justice.

A. Jaka