A Sporting Chance

By Pakac Luteb

Is it good sportsmanship to keep moving goalposts to favour one's own team?

BN/UMNO seems to believe it is.

Witness the many instances of when in the course of a trial the
Prosecution has amended the charges.

Often it's done when the charges clearly can't be sustained in the
face of the evidence.

An infamous example is Anwar's first sodomy case, where the building
the sodomy allegedly happened had not yet been built at the date of
the offence as stated in the charge.

Any proper court would have thrown out the charge and acquitted Anwar.

But the courts of Malaysia are anything but proper and permitted the
Prosecution to amend the date of the charge.

Sometimes the Prosecution amends the charges to harass a defendant,
the changes to the charges being intended to send the accused and
their lawyer from pillar to post, even though that is blatant abuse
and misuse of the Court.

The Prosecution must, if a trial is to have any legitimacy at all,
give the defendant a sporting chance, by not amending charges during a
trial.