LETTER | Politicians must stop requesting donations to pay court damages

LETTER | There is an unsavoury and dangerous trend of politicians requesting public donations to assist in the settlement of their court damages and costs.

If this trend persists, it may open the floodgates for politicians to slander or libel other politicians or the public on a whim, envy, for revenge, for political mileage or just for cheap publicity through mainstream and social media channels. They may also have done so based on little or flimsy evidence or on hearsay.

When the accusers lose the case and have to pay damages and costs, they turn to the public to help pay it off. Often it has a feel-good proviso to the donors that if the politicians appeal and win, the money will be donated elsewhere for a good cause or into the party war chest and not for personal gain, but this is not the material point.

The loss of the case may have been due to the politician’s own irresponsibility, negligence, inattention, and ego. It may be there was never a case in the first place and the accusation was done out of malice, resentment, deceit or for character assassination.

The accusers had purportedly claimed they had brought up the accusation or alleged truth so justice can be served, and the perpetrator penalised.

Of course, the public can donate if they wish to, but they should be wary and exercise sound judgement on these requests. They would do well to look into the facts and details before clicking that pay button.

Exposing and publicising misdeeds, corruption, abuse of power, and fraud are part of a politician's work. But being politicians, they should know that they should lodge a report of such nefarious activities with the police or other authorised investigative and prosecuting authorities and not accuse them through mainstream or social media.

If they don’t do what’s right and proper by law, these erring politicians must be responsible and bear the weight of the law themselves instead of foisting it onto the public.

Of late, donation requests have come from politicians who are known to be very well off. It has also been reported that a certain other politician collected twice the amount required and this politician’s family lives a luxurious lifestyle complete with imported sports cars.

Politicians must act responsibly, with integrity and with due diligence and care in what they do for the public holds them to this standard when they voted.

Politicians must not be asking for a monetary bailout by passing the hat around amongst the public should they err through their own irresponsibility, negligence, ego, or ill intentions.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.