Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on November 13, 2015.

 

KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali has admitted he stood as an Umno candidate for the 1990 general election, but denied that this had any influence on his role as attorney-general (AG).

“Yes, I was a candidate but everyone needs to be reminded that every judicial commissioner, High Court judge, Court of Appeal judge and Federal Court judge has to take an oath of office to uphold the rule of law.

“So, what bias are they talking about?” Mohamed Apandi told The Malaysian Insider.

He said such cases were not unusual, as Datuk Ariff Yussof, who contested on a PAS ticket in the 2004 general election, was later appointed judicial commissioner in 2008.

Mohamed Apandi added that he himself was appointed judicial commissioner in 2003, 13 years after he contested in the 1990 general election.

The AG said this when asked to comment on 2004 court documents seen by The Malaysian Insider, in which he revealed he stood as an Umno candidate in the 1990 general election.

Mohamed Apandi was then presiding as a judge for the case at the Kelantan High Court, and had been responding to an application to recuse him on the grounds that he was biased.

“[That] I stood as a candidate for Umno in the 1990 general election is a situation that goes back to some 14 years ago,” wrote Mohamed Apandi, in dismissing the recuse application on April 18, 2004.

In an exclusive interview with The Malaysian Insider published on Tuesday, Apandi had denied that he had ever held the post of the Kelantan Umno treasurer, despite numerous reports stating otherwise.

Mohamed Apandi said the highest official position he had held was that of Umno Youth chief in the Pengkalan Chepa division in Kelantan.

But the former Federal Court judge was quick to add that his post in Umno was “nothing” and had no links to the state liaison committee.  — The Malaysian Insider

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