Up close and personal with Roger Tan

The Star
by Wong Wei-Shen 

Lawyer and SPAN commissioner gets...

ROGER Tan has come a long way since his small town boy days in Yong Peng, Johor. From living in poverty as a young lad to becoming a successful lawyer in Malaysia, it is not hard to see that Tan values hard work, discipline and determination. These values are what have made him the man he is today.

Despite having achieved a lot in his life so far, it is evident that Tan harbours a lot of pain and anguish. On May 23, 2000, his father, Tan Sue Yong, the person who inspired Tan to become the man he is today, went missing after a walk about in Yong Peng town. His anguish lingers as 11 years later, his father has still not been found.

Tan is emotional when speaking to StarBizWeek about his father. “11 years have passed. Actually I've done all I can but we still can't locate him. I've gone on national television and used the press in every form. This is one area I feel that I've failed him.” Tan's wish is to get closure on his father's disappearance. “Even if we can't find him alive, the least that we want is to find his body and give him a decent burial,” he said.

Personal mentor

It is obvious from the way that Tan speaks of his father, that he looks up to his father, just as every little boy does to his own dad: with a sense of admiration and awe. His father comes from the rich Zheng family in Fuzhou, China. Due to the onset of communism, Sue Yong and his wife Swee Mei left China and came to Malaysia.

Bar Council criticised over its stand

New Sunday Times

KUALA LUMPUR: The Bar Council should let justice take its course rather than suggest that the Attorney-General refrain from appealing against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's acquittal from a sodomy charge.

World Assembly Youth president Datuk Idris Haron said due processes should be followed.

"The provisions are there and we should utilise the resources available.

"Natural justice, the right to be heard and the maxim of innocent until proven guilty should be practised," he said when commenting on Bar Council president Lim Chee Wee's statement urging the A-G not to appeal against Anwar's acquittal as the High Court had ruled fairly in the case.

Lim had said that the case had unnecessarily taken up judicial time and public funds and the A-G should focus on more serious crimes.

The A-G has 14 days to file an appeal from the date of the verdict. Due to the Chinese New Year celebrations next week, the last day to file an appeal is on Jan 25.

Police warn protesters against stepping out of line

The Sunday Star

KUALA LUMPUR: Organisers of tomorrow's Free Anwar 901 rally must ensure that none of their supporters gather outside the designated area or police will be forced to disperse them, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar said.

“I wish to stress that the approval for the rally outside the court house is not a blanket approval for people to gather anywhere else in the city or the country,” he said.

He said the designated parking area outside the court complex could accommodate about 5,000 people and no more than that.

Otherwise, it would lead to traffic congestion and inconvenience others, he said.

Civil disobedience cannot rule the law

The Sunday Star
by Roger Tan

Street Protest: Civil disobedience is becoming a popular tactical weapon used by politicians and civil rights movements to justify their violation of laws.

IN 1996, when my clients and I were negotiating with the Attorney-General’s Chambers, led by its then head of the advisory and international division Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, I warned that too high a rate might cause the public to refuse payment to privatised entities out of civil disobedience.

Then, both my learned friends across the table and my own clients were rather amused by my argument.

Today, this term “civil disobedience” appears to be the “in-thing” among politicians, particularly those from the opposition, backed by non-governmental organisations and civil rights and liberties movements.

It is becoming a popular tactical weapon used by them to justify their violation of laws which, in their view, are “unjust”, apart from indulging in some polemics.

Hence, we saw various street protests being held without a police permit in contravention of the Police Act (1967).

So, what is civil disobedience? I would define it as an open and deliberate law-breaking or infringement of rights to get public attention that is often politically motivated, and normally is carried out because the civil disobedients conscientiously feel, whether sincerely or otherwise, that they are morally obliged to do so.

Pressure groups around the world have, over the years, resorted to this means to secure their desired legal and social changes. But for an act to be considered civil disobedience, the disobedients must also be prepared to accept punishment for infracting the laws.

This is, in fact, fine with them as the courtroom will give them the publicity they seek for the causes and issues which they are advancing.

The father of the modern concept of civil disobedience is said to be American Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). For six years, he refused to pay taxes because of his opposition to slavery and the Mexican-American War. For that, he was thrown into jail in July 1846, but he only spent one night in jail because the next day, his aunt, against his wishes, paid his taxes.

We are undoubtedly more acquainted with celebrated modern-day civil disobedients such as Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Martin Luther King (1929-1968) and Rosa Parks (1913-2005).

Parks was fined for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger but Gandhi and King were jailed for disobeying the law. There is no denying that Gandhi’s Satyagraha and King’s civil rights movements brought immense legal and social changes to India and the United States respectively.

These civil disobedients were much inspired by the words of St Augustine (354-430) that an unjust law is no law at all (lex iniusta non est lex). So, one is under a moral obligation to disobey such a law. King also added that “sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application”.

The story told by Professor Charles Lund Black (1915-2001) of Yale Law School, an outspoken critic of the death penalty, about one Pawnee Indian brave named Peshwataro, best illustrates the operation and benefits of civil disobedience:

“The law of the Pawnee commanded that on the summer solstice there take place the sacrifice of the star maiden. A girl was each year captured from a neighbouring tribe and bound to a stake. At dawn, the Pawnee braves would ride in a circle about her and shoot their arrows into her.