Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR.
MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : SUNWAY PYRAMID CONVENTION CENTRE
Tarikh/Date : 13/09/99
Tajuk/Title : MAJLIS PERASMIAN PERSIDANGAN
UNDANG-UNDANG KOMANWEL KE-12
Terlebih dahulu saya mengalu-alukan tuan-tuan dan
puan-puan yang menghadiri Persidangan Undang-Undang
Komanwel Ke-12 ini dan mengucapkan terima kasih kepada
pihak penganjur atas jemputan untuk menyampaikan ucapan
dan seterusnya merasmikan pembukaan persidangan ini.
2. Saya ingin mengambil kesempatan ini untuk
mengucapkan syabas dan tahniah kepada pihak penganjur
yang telah berusaha menganjurkan persidangan yang
bermakna ini.
3. It is an honour for Malaysia to be given this
opportunity to host the 12th Commonwealth Law
Conference, and to witness this assembly of
distinguished members of the legal fraternity
comprising both public and private lawyers, as well as
members of the judiciary from the Commonwealth. It
makes it even more memorable that this Law Conference
in Kuala Lumpur is the last in this century.
4. The conference is timely not only because we are
approaching a new century and millennium but the rapid
advances in technology have forced us to think
differently about everything that we do. And this new
thinking, these new ideas, outlook and philosophy
necessitate changes in the perceptions of right and
wrong, good and bad, justice and injustice. With these
changes in perceptions there arise the need for new
laws and ways to enforce the laws. If we fail to
respond there is a possibility for anarchy to
characterise human society and for the weak to be
bullied by the strong, the poor by the rich.
5. In the days of sailing ships and even motor-
vessels, quarantine laws were not necessary. The time
taken to get from one place to another was sufficient
for any incipient disease carried by travellers to
manifest itself. But today we travel at jet speed and
we travel very frequently. Inoculations against
diseases and quarantine have become necessary. But
quarantine is no longer as practical as when travel by
jet was infrequent and jet planes had to make frequent
technical stops. Today one flies from London to Kuala
Lumpur non-stop. It would be meaningless to quarantine
for 14 days after a 12 hours jet flight.
6. Malaysia is one of the biggest rubber producing
countries. Our greatest fear is the leaf blight
disease which affects Brazilian rubber trees. The
disease can be carried unknowingly on the body or
clothing of travellers. It is impractical to ask
people flying from Brazil to go to a third destination
first, stay there for a week, and then come to
Malaysia. But leaf blight can destroy the whole
Malaysian rubber industry. What can we do if this
happens? If group action can make tobacco companies
pay huge sums by way of compensation, how can the total
destruction of a valuable national industry involving
millions of people be compensated?
7. But this of course is not the only problem with
jet-age travel. Criminals, saboteurs, hijackers, drug
smugglers and illegal immigrants can now flit from one
country to another. Checking on them takes time and is
not practical. Also countries can no longer isolate
themselves. People come, they observe and they
comment; comments which can be damaging to a country
and cost millions of dollars worth of trade.
Reporters, TV crew and an assortment of experts fly in
and fly out; subjecting a country to close scrutiny.
8. A country has to behave or it will come in for
damaging criticisms. On the other hand a country may
be well-behaved but those bent on damaging it can still
make adverse and damaging reports. Again if a lung
cancer patient must be compensated by tobacco
companies, cannot deliberate lies which damage the
economy of a country be similarly compensated following
legal proceedings?
9. Law enforcement and keeping the peace in a country
can no longer be done by beating up people and throwing
them in the clink. Law enforcers must be gentle and
circumspect because what they do will be televised and
shown all over the world, giving their country and
their Government a bad name.
10. But then how do you deal with a violent, stone-
throwing and shop-burning crowd of rioters? How do you
protect the shopkeepers and hawkers from them if gentle
persuasion fails? Or do we dismiss the losses incurred
by these traders because the democratic rights of the
rioters are far more important than the rights of other
citizens. If Governments cannot keep law and order and
protect innocent citizens, then why do we have a
Government? Could we really be better off without
Governments? It has already been suggested that the
business community can regulate itself without
Government intervention. Can we extend this to rioters
as well?
11. The ease of travel has apparently put a strain on
law enforcement. The TV crews may be doing a good turn
by restraining irresponsible Governments but they can
also restrain responsible Governments from protecting
the rights of innocent citizens going about their own
businesses, to earn a living. While the law provides
for litigation, it does not provide for damage or even
death caused by crowds of rioters. If we consider that
this is just, then we need to do nothing. But if we
care we have to formulate new ways and laws which can
prevent undue suffering by innocent victims of street
rioters. Recently action is being taken against
expressions of rage on the road and in the air. Cannot
there be similar provision for rioters? Presently they
are all being released because there are no concrete
evidence.
12. Thus the indirect effect of a world which has
become smaller due to the speed of jet travel. Perhaps
it is good, because Government and the law enforcers
must behave now. But we cannot tell the victims that
it is good because they can only see the injustice
perpetrated on them.
13. Jet travel exposes us to the values and cultures
of other people. But sometimes the other people,
especially those from powerful countries want to impose
their values and cultures on others. And this will
cause conflicts and violence even. Don't people have
any more rights to live their own way of life? Who
protects them from the insidious propaganda aimed at
changing them? Do we have to have a violent clash of
civilisations in order to settle who is right and who
is wrong? It does not speak well of the so-called
tolerant modern civilisation if the ways and values of
the victor are imposed on the defeated. It seems that
modern civilisation is in fact more primitive than
older civilisations.
14. But the speed of travel is nothing compared to the
speed with which news and data travel. Information is
instantaneous. It is good of course to be able to know
what is happening immediately, in real time as they
say. But then the ease and speed of news, pictures and
data communication can be damaging as well, especially
if it is abused.
15. Today we are blessed with the Internet. You can
get any and every information on the Internet. You can
learn how to make a nuclear bomb if you want to. But
greater than this danger of someone irresponsible
building a nuclear bomb is the ability to make pipe
bombs, to make a riot more violent. And there are
other lethal weapons which we can learn how to make
from the Internet.
16. Then there is the assault on the moral values of
people, of the young in particular. Pornographic
literature and pictures can be accessed through the
Internet, down-loaded and distributed. There is no
known effective way of screening out these undesirable
information.
17. Some countries have tried making access to such
things illegal. But they have not been successful in
enforcing the law. Some have of course advocated
absolute freedom of access to everything and anything,
pornography included. They say that society must
develop a set of values which will make it resistant to
the undermining of its morals.
18. But can we really do this? We now read of
children raping other children. Teenagers now indulge
in free sex and some heightened their thrills with
violence against their victims and even murdering them.
There is perhaps a latent rapist and murderer in all of
us. But fear of condemnation by society, fear of the
law and of punishment may keep this latent tendencies
in check. When society accepts that there is nothing
we can do to check wild acts, then those who had
otherwise kept their lusts under control will see no
more need to control it. And when this happens rapes
and murders will become more and more common. Such is
the effect of society's inability or unwillingness to
prevent the abuse of information technology. In some
countries owning a gun is a right. No matter how many
people are killed with guns, the advocates of gun
ownership will resist any attempt to ban ownership of
guns. It would seem that we cannot touch the right to
free access to information because like ownership of
guns this has become a part of human rights.
19. But the speed of information has another
devastating effect. You may know that Malaysia and its
neighbours were subjected to attacks by currency
traders. This is made possible through the magic of
the computer. The currency traders have a system
whereby vast sums of money can change hands on computer
screens without one single cent in cash crossing any
border. The only thing that happens is changes in the
figures on the screen, as someone's money is borrowed
and sold and the value depressed. Through repeated
sale of the currency, the value can be depressed to any
level. The seller may then buy at the lower price and
deliver to the person he had previously sold the money
to when the price was higher. He makes a huge profit
as the deal involves hundreds of millions or even a
billion dollars.
20. For the trader currency trading is good profitable
business. But the devaluation impoverishes the country
whose currency has been devalued. Malaysia imports 100
billion dollars of goods a year. Malaysia's currency
depreciated by 50 per cent, incurring a loss of
purchasing power of 50 billion dollars.
21. This is a real loss and it is felt by the people
through inflated cost of imports, by businesses as they
suddenly find themselves able to pay for only half of
the goods they import, by banks as their clients fail
to pay debts, by the Government as failing businesses
pay less taxes. So severe is the effect that companies
and banks were nearly bankrupted. The Government was
being dragged down with it.
22. Failing businesses in some of the countries
attacked resulted in millions of workers being thrown
out of jobs. They cannot buy food, or milk for their
children or medicine. They take to the streets,
rioting and burning shops and looting them. They raped
and murdered. Unable to find their tormentors, they
turned on their Governments and overthrew them.
23. A rapidly growing country can suddenly become a
basket case because its currency has been devalued by
the currency traders.
24. The traders buying or selling a billion dollars
may make a few hundred million dollars for themselves.
Yet they cause losses of tens of billions to the
country whose currency they have devalued. And all
this is done simply by moving figures on a computer to
show that a transaction has taken place. No real money
is involved but the effect is even worse than actually
trading in cash. Such is the effect of electronic data
transfer.
25. During the currency turmoil in East Asia, hundreds
of billions of dollars in terms of purchasing power
were lost by the region. The currency traders may have
made in all a few billions. There is therefore a net
loss of wealth, wealth which had taken decades to build
up.
26. The Governments of the countries attacked are
blamed for not being transparent, for cronyism and
corruption. That these same Governments had succeeded
in achieving continuous high growth of their economy is
dismissed as irrelevant. That the currency cannot
possibly devalue itself is never mentioned. The
currency traders are blameless even though the
currencies were devalued only after they started
attacking these currencies. Had they not short-sold
these currencies there is no way for the currencies to
be devalued. It should be obvious that it is the
currency traders and their short-selling activities
which devalued the currency. But if anyone accuses the
currency traders of causing the devaluation, they would
punish their accuser by devaluing the currency further.
27. The Great Train robber was guilty of robbing
money. If he had returned to England he would have
been arrested, tried and jailed. But currency traders
made huge sums of money through impoverishing
countries. What they had done is nothing less than
robbing the wealth of these countries and their people.
Yet they are not guilty of robbery or anything. They
are doing nothing more than trading in a free market.
If as a result people lose their money, riot and kill;
if Governments and businesses go bankrupt, that does
not make the traders guilty of any crime.
28. There was a time when Rockefeller tried to
monopolise the oil industry in the United States. His
small competitors went bankrupt and he was in a
position to sell his oil at any price. He was not
doing anything wrong. He was merely availing himself
of his competitiveness and his huge wealth to corner
the business in a free market. Yet the Government
stepped in and enacted an anti-monopoly law to stop
such unfair competition.
29. Today we are told that the free market is sacred
and it should be left to regulate itself. Since the
free market enables currency trading to be done,
nothing should be done to curb it even if it
impoverishes whole countries and regions. Imagine what
would have happened if Rockefeller was allowed to
continue with his bid to monopolise the oil market.
Would there be fair pricing? Would others have a share
in a lucrative business? Yet the powerful, highly
leveraged hedge funds are allowed to do anything they
like with the free market. The sufferings that they
cause is no reason to curb them. No law should be
enacted to make currency trading illegal. Even
regulating currency trading cannot be entertained.
30. It is clear that perceptions of right and wrong,
fair and unfair have changed. Systems are now regarded
as more important than the results they produce. A
free market must never be regulated even if it destroys
nations and people.
31. There is a great unwillingness on the part of the
world powers to do anything to curb currency trading.
It would seem that the freedom of a few rich people to
make huge sums of money through the free market is more
important than the sufferings of millions of people,
their countries and their economies. Ideas about
justice and fair play have now become distorted.
32. The world is rightfully concerned about human
rights abuses. However human rights is presently
interpreted only as the right of political dissent. No
one should be punished in any way for holding political
views different from those of the Government. It would
seem that the inability to hold dissenting political
views imposes tremendous pain on a citizen. A citizen
must be allowed to express his dissenting views at
whatever cost. If due to his views being expressed
there is political instability, riots and killings,
these have to be accepted. The death of others,
possibly innocent people is of less importance than a
person's freedom to dissent.
33. Again we see a very distorted perception of right
and wrong. The Government of a country is considered
as having violated human rights because it denies a few
people the right of dissent while currency traders who
deprived millions of their jobs and income, of their
lives even, are not considered as having violated human
rights.
34. It would seem that violation of human rights can
only be done by Governments while everyone else may
oppress millions of people with impunity. Since
oppression by people of other people is not considered
as violation of human rights, we will not do anything
to stop it. Indeed we are seeing the rights of the
currency traders upheld while the rights of their
suffering victims are ignored.
35. While we are on the subject of human rights, we
should also give some thought to the rights of the
citizens of a country whose leader is considered to be
an oppressive dictator. To force this dictator to
surrender, the people of this country are deprived of
food and medicine through sanctions. More of these
people suffer and die because of the sanctions than the
number alleged to have been killed by the dictator.
36. As if this is not enough the country is being
bombed continously in an attempt to force the dictator
to submit to international scrutiny of his country.
More innocent people are killed as a result. And so in
order to ensure that the people are freed from
oppression by their leader, they are being starved,
deprived of medicine and killed by bombing. Apparently
starving these people and killing them do not
constitute violation of their rights.
37. Compare this to the rights of a cigarette smoker
who despite the warning that smoking cigarettes can
cause cancer, was awarded more than one billion dollars
in compensation because he claims that his smoking has
given him cancer. It is his right therefore to be
compensated but the people living under a dictatorship
can expect no compensation for whatever misfortune may
befall them as a result of the attempt to topple the
dictator.
38. Ideas about human rights are getting more and more
peculiar. Impoverishing millions of people, depriving
them of medicine, even killing large numbers of them
directly or indirectly are not considered violation of
human rights but arrest a political dissident and the
whole world condemns the Government for violations of
human rights. That in fact the Government is
protecting the rights of millions of other law abiding
citizens is irrelevant. The rights of a political
dissident outweighs the well-being of the rest of the
population.
39. There seems to be something wrong in our
perceptions of things. Even legal minds, concerned as
they are about justice and fair play seem to be quite
unconcerned about what is clearly massive and
systematic violations of human rights. They are more
concerned about developing countries not understanding
legal processes, are corrupt and are disposed towards
poisoning and plotting the overthrow of political
rivals. Whatever may be the evidence to the contrary,
developing countries, former colonies in particular,
cannot be doing anything right in the administration of
justice, as in other things.
40. Free trade is such a revered creed that any amount
of unfairness and inequity must be accepted if they are
the results of free trade. The emphasis is on level
playing fields. The size and strengths of the players
are considered as irrelevant. Thus a country with a
huge market which gives its industries tremendous
economies of scale must be allowed to compete freely
with the tiny industries of a small country. This is
considered fair because the playing field is even.
That giants are being fielded against midgets is of no
consequence.
41. The World Trade Organisation advocates the opening
up of all markets to every one big and small. In
theory this means that the products of small countries
can enter the markets of the big countries as freely as
the products of the rich can enter the markets of the
poor. But in practice the poor countries may not have
any products to export to the rich at all. If they do
they may not meet the high standards set by the rich.
At home they will face competition with cheap high-
quality goods from the rich countries. In the end they
will have to close down and lay off their workers.
42. Perhaps there is no necessity for poor countries
to produce anything that the rich countries can produce
more efficiently and cheaply. By doing away with tax
barriers the people in the poor countries can buy
imported products cheaply. But this is only possible
if the poor countries have the money to pay for the
imports. If they have nothing to export, they will not
earn enough foreign exchange to pay for the imports.
In the end the foreign products may be cheap but the
country just cannot buy for lack of foreign exchange.
And their Governments will have no money as they cease
to collect taxes on imports. The poor countries and
their poor people will only get poorer as a result of
free trade.
43. Far from improving world trade the removal of
barriers to trade can actually result in a contraction
of world trade. Since all the major businesses,
industries and banks in the poor countries would be
owned by the big players from the rich countries, there
will be more outflow than inflow of funds as the
profits are repatriated to the rich countries. The
poor countries will have no money to buy foreign goods.
Trade will contract as a result.
44. Again we see anything but equity in the
relationship between poor countries and rich countries.
Whether it be currency trading or globalisation and a
borderless world, the poor benefits not at all. Do we
examine this and formulate laws on international trade?
No. Trade must be free. There must be liberalisation
and deregulation. The impoverishing of the already
poor is no reason for making trade less free.
45. The world's attention has been focussed by the
western media, by human rights groups and assorted
NGO's on the way developing countries conduct their
legal processes. Of course they are always found
wanting and efforts are made to get these countries to
conform to the so-called world standards and universal
values. It is therefore not surprising that
International Laws and practices receive only scant
attention. The International Financial System is one
of them. But more importantly, the structure and the
role of the United Nations have not been subject to any
updating in keeping with the times.
46. It is ridiculous that this important world body is
still tethered to the results of the World War fought
50 years ago. The victory of certain nations in that
war seems to entitle them to hegemony over the United
Nations and the world forever. The Permanent Five will
not yield to anyone nor forego their veto rights.
Anyone of them can frustrate the rest of the 170 odd
members of the United Nations.
47. This undemocratic power may sit well with China
and Russia but the other three countries preach
democracy ad nauseam. It does not become them to be
blatantly feudal and undemocratic in the United Nations
when they so vehemently insist that every country must
be democratic.
48. When the Government of a country is feudal, reform
becomes difficult as the constitution would require
consent of the feudal ruler. And feudal rulers are not
likely to consent to their powers being diminished in
any way. The situation in the United Nations is the
same.
49. The Permanent Five controls the affairs of the
United Nations and prevents any dissenting voice from
being heard. At times they even ignore international
laws and practices. Thus they would think nothing of
arresting the leader of a country and trying him under
the laws of their country. They mine harbours of
unfriendly countries. They bomb and attack countries
at will. They actually support what may be described
as state terrorism, not in their own country but in
other countries, frequently weak small countries.
50. Despite being members of the United Nations small
countries can seek no redress against the oppressive
measure taken against them. The World Court does not
offer this facility as the parties concerned must agree
to abide by World Court decisions first. And the
powerful are not going to consent to judgement by the
World Court.
51. We are about to enter a new century and a new
millennium. We cannot say much for democracy in the
relation between nations. We are still living in a
primitive society in which might is right. Justice and
fair play exist not at all. Even as the world gets
smaller and every country becomes next-door neighbours
to everyone else, there is no equitable laws to govern
their relations.
52. The Commonwealth Law Conference brings together
prominent figures in the legal profession from almost a
third of the countries of the world. You will be
concerned and interested in the administration of
justice in developing countries such as Malaysia. But
I do hope that you will have time to focus also on the
problems of international relations in trade, finance,
on human rights other than just the right of political
dissent, on the onrushing globalised, borderless world
in which small countries will no longer be able to seek
shelter behind their borders from marauding industrial
and commercial giants. The rights of individuals
should be protected, but nations too should be
protected, for many individuals make up the nation.
53. Liberalisation and deregulations are being touted
as the open sesame to a new world economic order but
from what we in East Asia have seen, this new order may
very well result in our subjugation, first
economically, then politically as well. While we
believe in democracy, in human rights and in the rule
of law, all these would be meaningless if, directly or
indirectly we are colonised again.
54. For many of us the memory of colonisation is still
fresh and we must be wary of new ideas which may lead
to our losing some if not all of our precious
independence. During the recent attack on our currency
Malaysia almost had to submit to foreign control of its
economy, which could end up with political control as
well. We managed to save ourselves but others are not
so lucky. We fear that unless we have a hand in the
shaping of new ideas about how a globalised world would
function, we may really lose our freedom.
55. Malaysia is a democratic country where the rule of
law is upheld. You may want to check. You are welcome
to do so. We have nothing to hide but open minds are
necessary for you to judge fairly.
56. I now have pleasure in declaring the Conference
open.
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