U6.collaborative+essay.2

__'Laws are made by the powerful to protect their own interests.' Examine this statement.__

Order of entry (one paragraph each): Shu Xian, Daphnie, Ka Liang, Jason, Kumu, James, Melissa The law is made to ensure peace in a country. However, because lawmakers are the controllers of the law, they then manipulate the law usually to suit their own interest in several ways: amassing wealth illegally and implementing self-immunity from punishment. In the end, they become the law themselves, like back in the days of Julius Caesar the dictator. For example, Malaysia's Sultanate families once had immunity from punishment. However, it has now been revised. Take, for instance, the famous Gomez incident in 1992 in Malaysia, where Douglas Gomez was assaulted by the Sultan himself for not following the Sultan’s instructions. During that time, the Sultan had full immunity over the law of Malaysia - the **Rulers’ immunity**. Due to this, Gomez could not bring his case to court. There were also allegations of abuses of privileges by other Rulers. For instance, the Pahang Royalty allegedly was exerting pressure on the Pahang government and its forestry officials to hand out more timber concessions in spite of substantial concessions that have already been handed out over the past 4 years. There were also complaints that some Rulers refused to pay off their debts and allegations of the privilege of purchasing imported cars free of duty taxes had been abused. The few that I have mentioned above are merely the recorded cases. The number of cases that goes unrecorded remains unknown, and could well be a significant figure.

The idea that the law has exceptions for certain individuals is not particularly true. The so-called "immunity" is not an exception but rather a failure to apply the law on certain individuals because of their status. The law comes under the government and the government comes under the royal family(though they do not display much political power) so it is politically natural for them to respond to any of the royalty's failure to abide by the law by giving them a different and more lenient treatment. It all comes down to the psychological response to the wrongdoings of such highly ranked people. In the past, the sultan(or king) is seen to have more power as compared to anyone else; it still applies today although the royal family is no longer as politically active as before.

The United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), was founded on May 11, 1946. Its core belief is that of the "ketuanan Melayu" an ideology which states that the Malay people, who are all regarded as "Muslim" are the original and defining populace of Malaya, and thus should have special status and privileges. UMNO, in association with other racial parties, has ruled uninterrupted since independence,. Due to this, UMNO began to abuse the power they have and manipulate the law to protect themselves. Laws have been passed to discriminate other races in jobs and other economic benefits which have been exclusively reserved for Muslims. With UMNO in control, it would seem the members of the ruling coalition have taken upon themselves that they are immune to the law. A politician in UMNO once declared that the Anti-Corruption Agency has no power to initiate investigations on reports or charges relating to politics and bribery within UMNO. This indirectly means that they are immune to any charges which relates to corruption.