Rome Statute: Positions of four academics no longer tenable

LETTER | Dear Education Minister Maszlee Malik,

I wish to refer to the case of the four academics, namely Shamrahayu Abdul Aziz of International Islamic University Malaysia, Fareed Mohd Hassan and Hisham Hanapi of Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, and Rahmat Mohamad of Universiti Teknologi Mara, who together offered advice to the Conference of Rulers on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recently. 

Being employed by public institutions, they are all public servants. As such my contention is that they are guilty on three counts as follows:

First, unless they had received prior permission from their respective vice-chancellors, they went over their heads in offering advice to the Conference of Rulers.

Second, they went against government policy which had already agreed to accede to the Rome Statute.

Third, they gave erroneous advice against acceding to the Rome Statute. Indeed, they were invited to an open forum last Saturday, on Apr 27, to defend their views, but they all either declined or did not respond.

Therefore, I am of the opinion that their positions in their respective universities are no longer tenable.

ALWI JANTAN is a member of G25.

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