To be an effective minister with integrity, Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor must come clean on his role in the V.K. Lingam judicial appointments scandal

Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, having been found by a Royal Commission of Inquiry to have conspired with Datuk VK Lingam and Tan Sri Vincent Tan to subvert the Federal Constitution by fixing the appointment of judges must come clean of his role in conspiring with Lingam.

In September 2007, Malaysians were stunned by the release of an eight-minute recording of Datuk VK Lingam engaging in a telephone conversation with a senior judge, detailing a dishonest conspiracy to fix the appointment of senior judges in the Malaysian judiciary. In that eight-minute recording, the name of Tengku Adnan was mentioned no fewer than eleven times.

After lengthy hearings, the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the scandal, headed by former Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Haidar Mohd Noor, handed down its findings in May 2008. It held that VK Lingam, Tan Sri Vincent Tan and Tengku Adnan were all accomplices in a “nefarious exercise” to thwart the proper appointment of judges in accordance with the Federal Constitution.

The RCI found that the conspirators (including others such as Tun Eusoff Chin) had also schemed to ensure their “friends” were appointed to the judiciary. The RCI also found that Tengku Adnan, as Deputy Minister and later Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, appeared to be the “fixer” within the Prime Minister’s Department who passed secret information relating to the appointment of judges to VK Lingam, in apparent breach of the Official Secrets Act 1972.

In response to Tengku Adnan’s denial of involvement, the RCI found that Tengku Adnan had in his sworn testimony been “too economical with the truth to be believed”. It held that Tengku Adnan had “not in the least degree” succeeded in disassociating himself from the video clip in which his name was mentioned eleven times.

The RCI also drew attention to the fact that Tengku Adnan had, as a Deputy Minister and Minister, sworn a solemn oath to “protect, preserve and defend” the Constitution of Malaysia, but had instead involved himself in a conspiracy to destroy the credibility of the institution of justice in Malaysia.

The RCI recommended that the VK Lingam and his conspirators be investigated by the Attorney General under the Penal Code, the Sedition Act 1948, the Legal Profession Act 1976 and the Official Secrets Act 1972, but until no action has been taken against those responsible.

It is clear that despite all that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak may claim, Malaysia cannot move on from the corruption and abuses of power of the Mahathir era while men such as Tengku Adnan who are implicated in some of the worst abuses of that time are appointed to high ministerial positions by Datuk Seri Najib. Tengku Adnan fully account for his role in the V.K. Lingam as a Malaysian Cabinet Minister must not only be clean but must also be seen to be clean.