Royal Commission of Inquiry into Lingam Tape may  forever be  known as a  “It looks like me and its sounds like me” Royal Commission unless it can shake off the infamy of being dismissed as a “cover-up” commission

Senior lawyer V.K. Lingam has probably coined the quote of the century with his “It looks like me and it sounds like me” statement to the Royal Commission of Inquiry hearing yesterday.

What is even more serious, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Tape may  forever be known as a “It looks like me and its sounds like me” Royal Commission unless it can shake off the infamy of being dismissed  as a “cover-up” commission. 

After the scandalous  competition between former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and former Chief Justice, Tun Eusuff Chin to out-forget each other in their testimony before the Royal Commission of Inquiry last week, it would be hard-put for anyone to out-scandalise the public  – but Lingam was clearly up to the task in putting the two Tuns in the shade! 

Lingam has applied to expunge all evidence tendered at the Royal Commission of Inquiry on the New Zealand holiday in 1994 taken by him and then Chief Justice Eusoff Chin at last week’s  Royal Commission of Inquiry on the ground that they were irrelevant to the scope of the inquiry. 

The Royal Commission of Inquiry will decide tomorrow after hearing submissions by  lawyers representing various concerned parties. 

Whether Lingam’s application to expunge the evidence on his holidaying with Eusoff Chin in New Zealand in 1994  from the Royal Commission of Inquiry succeeds or otherwise, nothing can expunge Eusoff’s testimony  from public mind and memory, for they are most pertinent to explain  why the state of the judiciary is in such a sorry state, plunging from one crisis of confidence to another about  its independence, integrity and competence in the past 19 years. 

Even if Eusoff’s evidence before the Royal Commission of Inquiry is expunged from the Royal Commission proceedings, they cannot be expurgated from the public mind and Eusoff owes the nation a full responsibility to come forward to fully account for his integrity as Chief Justice during the period when he held the highest judicial post in the land. 

In his testimony, for instance, Eusoff gave the most ridiculous and  bizarre account of the  chain of coincidences which caused his family and that of Lingam to take the same flight from Singapore to Auckland, from Auckland to Christchurch, from Christchurch to Queenstown and the return trips – as well lodging in the same hotels, visiting the same tourist sites and traveling in the same van! 

In his appearance last Friday, when asked whether he stayed in the same hotel as Lingam, Eusoff said: “In Auckland there is only one good hotel.”

I have been informed that even way back in 1994, there were four or five five-star hotels in Auckland.

If Lingam succeeds in expunging  Eusoff’s testimony from the Royal Commission of Inquiry, the Cabinet on Wednesday must institute a full public inquiry to get to the bottom of the scandalous stewardship of the highest judicial post by Eusoff Chin when he was Chief Justice of Malaysia.