Penalty should fit the crime
RECENT sentences meted out by our courts are inconsistent. How do you explain the case of a headmaster, a first-time offender, being sentenced to eight months’ jail for accepting a RM4,400 bribe, “Primary school headmaster gets eight months’ jail” ( The Star, Feb 7) while an ex-naval officer was jailed for only nine months and fined RM20,000 for taking bribes worth RM420,852 in the form of precious objects (as reported in a local daily on Jan 31)?
The amount involved in the second case is 95 times more than the RM4,400 bribe taken by the headmaster. The discrepancy in the two punishments is so glaring.
Isn’t there a travesty of justice when the sentence meted out to the naval officer seems too light in terms of the jail term?
The norm is that punishment must commensurate with the severity of the offence. Why was this not followed?
After paying the fine of RM20,000, the naval officer would “benefit” with a net gain of RM400,852 from his wrongdoing. Would this not give the public the impression that crime indeed pays?
More recently, a Forestry Department officer took bribes totalling RM340,000 but he was made to pay a fine of only RM150,000. As for the prison sentence, he was slapped with a jail term of three months for each of the three charges to be served concurrently, “Forestry officer jailed nine months for taking bribe” ( The Star, Sept 21).
So he would only serve three months in jail, and for good behaviour he would be out after two months.
Why was the judge so lenient in this case? The country will soon run out of forest if a strong message is not sent to others tasked with managing and protecting them.
Former Court of Appeal judge Mohd Noor Abdullah was reported by an online news portal on March 28 saying that judges these days have a tendency to take a softer stand in sentencing individuals convicted of corruption.
“The judges are ‘softer’ because society is also softer (in tolerating corruption),” he was quoted as saying.
Mohd Noor, who is a member of the MACC Advisory Board, also lamented that fines imposed on individuals convicted for corruption is often much lower than the corrupt amount they received.
“Corruption cases involving money is punished with a fine and (the convicted) can still profit,” he said. He stressed that the current punishments meted out do not commensurate with the gravity of the crime.
On the other hand, other courts have been severe in their sentences.
Take the case of a single mother of five in Melaka who was sentenced to six months’ jail and fined RM100,000 for soliciting a RM20,000 bribe by impersonating a Malaysian AntiCorruption Commission (MACC) enforcement officer as inducement to settle an alleged corruption case, “Single mother gets six months jail, RM100,000 fine for soliciting bribe” (The Star, Feb 9).
The mother had to pay a fine five times the amount of the bribe.
I’m not sure what kind of message the courts are trying to convey with such inconsistent sentencing.
The acceptance of bribes should and can never be a profitable business whatever the circumstances.
It is not known whether any appeal has been made against these soft sentences. If none has been made, it is hoped the AttorneyGeneral’s Office would review the “soft” sentences (and all previous soft sentences) and make an appeal so that an appropriate punishment befitting the crime can be imposed.
Are there no standard operating procedures or guidelines that judges must adhere to?
All the public wants is a sentence befitting the crime as well as a punishment that serves as a strong deterrent to would-be wrongdoers.
DR POLA SINGH Former exco member Transparency International Malaysia