DAP's Charles Santiago's grouse with the four "Professor Kangkung" was for warning the Malay Rulers that as Supreme Commander, the Agong is open to the risk of being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
It is no new substance as Tun Dr Mahathir insinuated of a vocal royal wanting to oppose the Rome Statute for the pleasure of beating people up.
If Tommy Thomas said at the UM Forum that there is no such risk since any military action require cabinet approval, then Mahathir must be laying the blame to TMJ, as Supreme Commander of the Johor Military Force.
As said before, the Rome Statute issue could have been laid to rest if not for the stubborn Foreign Minister, Dato Saifuddin Abdullah.
He not only superceded the Prime Minister to sign the statute without his consent but intended to ratify the Rome Statute despite announcing withdrawal.
Dato Mukhriz was reported to have said one day the Rome Statute will be ratified. It only exposed how limited his understanding of how conventions and statutes works.
The immediate effect when Malaysia becomes a party to a Convention and Statute is that our laws must be amended to reflect the articles within the statute and convention
Then we will see the real impact as is happening in Saudi Arabia where as a party to ICERD, they are required to allow the issuance of liquour and night clubs licenses. There was a big demonstration in Riyadh against it recently.
The liberal groups are hiding this fact from the public, especially the Malays on the ground on the real effects of signing international instruments
Malaysia practises dualism or in other word, we are a dualist state in which we separate international and domestic law.
Any international instrument officially ratified or recognised has to be applied in domestic law. Hence absorbing articles of ratified international instruments into domestic law means it becomes Malaysia's written law too.
In other words, international statutes and convention will impose their will on our sovereignty. No tidak apa here even if said by the AG or Prof Shad Faruqi. .
Dato Noor Faridah exposed that BN cabinet were looking into ratifying the Rome Statute back in 2011 had it not been vehemently opposed by the then AG. Without going any further, the then AG was Tan Sri Gani Patail.
Gani Patail is on your side of the political divide. He was made AG by the the then fourth Prime Minister, Mahathir who is now the current Prime Minister.
The former Foreign Minister did not carryout the ratification agreed by cabinet members and as Noor Faridah claimed, all agencies being seek for feedback agreed to it.
Believe she lied. And, what is the issue if someone spotted something wrong and the respective cabinet member held back on the ratification for precaution sake. Why is she so keen on ratifiying a statute that have been deemed worthless by major powers of the world.
Where lies the credibility and enforcibility of the statute when superpowers US, China, Russia etc are not members?
Recently, the US openly opposed the ICC, banned and revoke the visas of ICC prosecutors from entering US to carryout the investigation on US atrocities at the Afghanistan war. SUbseqquently the ICC judges prohibited the prosecutor from pursuing the US.
Philipines had withdrawn from the ICC in March and Malaysia did the stupid thing to ratify it in March but then did a U turn to wthdraw a month later.
The issue of the enforceability of ICC have long been questioned for only pursuing African countries that few African countries have withdrawn due to this.
The UK had once raised the issue of wastage and effectiveness of the ICC for the money plughed to maintain it.
The Malaysian eager beaver left wing and liberals are overly excited to have more internationally acceptable human rights practises by having conventions and statutes like ICERD and Rome Statutes.
In 2017, the former US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley called the UN Human Rights Council as corrupt.
The name is American but she is a Punjabi immigrant and was a two times Governor of South Carolina. She is a potential US Presidential candidate and maybe not yet for 2020. It is telling as to where the future of Rome Statute.
Yet some Malaysians are so overzealous to ratify a worthless piece of statute.
To be continued