Politically-motivated cases should be dropped

His case was clearly politically motivated. All such cases should be thrown out.

For a while it was somewhat uncertain whether Lim Guan Eng can be sworn in as the Finance Minister because he has a pending corruption trial. Turns out he has been sworn in.

Guan Eng's trial has been postponed as he is seeking to have the case dismissed by a new Attorney-General. Will it be dismissed as a politically-motivated charge?

MCA Publicity Spokesman Ti Lian Ker says the proposal for Guan Eng’s corruption charges to be dropped reeks strongly of political interference.

In a way it's true. If Najib and BN had won the election, no way would Guan Eng have a ghost of a chance of having his charges dropped. So which coalition is in charge does make a difference.

On the surface, Ti's call for the due process of the law to be "respected and followed" sounds like a reasonable argument. But only if in fact the charges were not at all politically-motivated. If the charges were flawed from the start, it wold be a miscarriage of justice and a waste of time and taxpayer money to proceed with the trial.

Lawyers for Liberty have said as much, calling for a review of all politically-motivated cases. To quote its executive director, Eric Paulsen:

"It will be a waste of time and public resources if the AGC continues to pursue these cases with the same politically-motivated vigour that they did under the previous administration. Worse still, it will undermine public trust in the current Harapan government and also the AGC, given the incompatibility of the promise of repealing these (oppresssive) laws on the one hand whilst continuing to prosecute individuals under them on the other."

That's why it was perfectly ethical to secure a pardon for Anwar as well as to seek for Guan Eng's charges to be thrown out. Both cases were clearly political.