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The civil society group Projek SAMA has launched an AI-powered database tracking prosecutions involving current and former politicians, from 1MDB-linked cases to other major graft trials. The Prosecutorial Accountability Watch offers the public a clearer view of the status and outcomes of these cases. Its launch is also significant as the government prepares to table its revised bill on separating the Public Prosecutor’s role from the Attorney-General’s Chambers at the next Dewan Rakyat sitting. On this episode of #ConsiderThis, Melisa Idris speaks with lawyer Ngeow Chow Ying, Convener of Projek SAMA, and Professor Wong Chin Huat, Deputy Head of Strategy at UN SDSN Asia, Sunway University and member of Projek SAMA.
Credits: Prosecutorial Accountability Watch was developed by Projek SAMA with contributions from Kuek Ser Kuang Keng, Farah Izzah Haron, Ngeow Chow Ying, Jernell Tan, Wo Chang Xi, Thibi, Basil Foo and Rahmat Haron, with Malaysiakini as media partner.
Credits: Prosecutorial Accountability Watch was developed by Projek SAMA with contributions from Kuek Ser Kuang Keng, Farah Izzah Haron, Ngeow Chow Ying, Jernell Tan, Wo Chang Xi, Thibi, Basil Foo and Rahmat Haron, with Malaysiakini as media partner.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Music
00:10Hello and good evening, I'm Melissa Igris. Welcome to Consider This.
00:14This is the show where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of
00:19the day.
00:19The civil society group Project SAMA has recently launched an AI-powered database
00:25tracking prosecutions involving current and former politicians from 1MDB-linked cases to other major graft trials in the country.
00:34The Prosecutorial Accountability Watch offers the public a clearer view of the status and outcomes of some of these cases.
00:44The timing is also significant because the government will table its revised bill for the separation of the public prosecutor's
00:53role
00:53and from the Attorney-General's Office in the next Dewan Rakyat sitting.
00:58So today on the show to tell us more about this amazing new website is Niao Chow Ying,
01:02who is a practicing lawyer and convener of Project SAMA.
01:05I also have with me in the studio Professor Wong Chin Huat,
01:08who is the Deputy Head of Strategy for the Asia Headquarters of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
01:16He is also a member of Project SAMA.
01:19So welcome to the show both of you.
01:21So, Chow Ying, may I begin with you?
01:23So, why don't you introduce us to this website, the Prosecutorial Accountability Watch Project.
01:29Talk to me a little bit about what sparked the idea, who is this for, what are you aiming to
01:35achieve?
01:35Yeah.
01:36So, this started when Project SAMA wanted to draft statements about corruptions, about Najib's asking for pardon.
01:43And we want to list down all the cases involving Najib.
01:48And now we have searched everywhere.
01:52Information was scattered here and there.
01:54We want to see who is the prosecuting team, who is the judge, what has he gone through,
01:59how many exactly, the number of charges, under what he was charged.
02:04The information was really scattered everywhere.
02:07And it took a lot of time to actually gather and verify.
02:11And then we thought deeper.
02:14I was like, this can't be.
02:16Because you need to have a place where all this information, very important data,
02:22stored at one place where everyone who needs to use it, whether or not it's a journalist,
02:28writing an article, whether it's an academician, or just ordinary people wanting to know exactly
02:33what happened to the high-profile corruption cases, needs to go to.
02:37And that is really where we started the idea.
02:42And then so, we actually engaged researchers.
02:47Farah Iza, she spent almost six months looking at all the cases in the news, in the news portals,
02:55as well as journal, legal journal, and pick up all the information and put it into one Excel sheet
03:01in a database.
03:02And then we thought, how do we make this more accessible for people?
03:06You know, I can't just show you the database.
03:07And that's where we thought about having a database, searchable, and then we then talked
03:16to our friend, King.
03:17Then he started to give us idea about why, well, you can use the chat box.
03:23Now AI is so advanced.
03:26We can come up with a microsite.
03:27We can come up with the data set where people can search and information come up.
03:32You can also have a place where someone want to ask a specific question, you can ask there.
03:40And the questions will come not from everywhere, because you need to verify.
03:44You don't know how accurate of the information is out there.
03:48But they can take the answer from the database that we have created.
03:52So that's why we have this Prosecutorial Accountability Watch, PAW Watch database.
03:58And it was launched two weeks ago, and I'm really glad that we managed to do this.
04:05So this project and this site encompasses three things.
04:08One is a short story, a microsite short story, analyzing the cases, right?
04:15So what are the cases that happens after the change of 2018?
04:21To all the different governments, when is it that the case was ended?
04:29And also we look into how much is the corruptions amount, as compared to how many schools you can build
04:38with those numbers of corruptions amount.
04:41So that is in a microsite story, and we have also translated that into BM and Chinese.
04:50Oh, wow.
04:51Yes, so it is now up.
04:54This is the BM one, and we also have the Chinese translations.
05:00The idea is really to have this read by as many people as possible.
05:05I have to say, as a journalist, newsrooms in particular will find this so important, because you're right.
05:12There is a need to consolidate this information, because I think often, given how long these cases take, we forget
05:20some of the finer details.
05:22So I'm so glad and grateful that you've put together a library, essentially, of information.
05:28So there is a one-stop centre for this information.
05:32And not only is it one-stop centre, there's also AI, so you can ask it all kinds of things.
05:37Do you know what? Let's bring you into this conversation.
05:40What I found, my first question is, the website doesn't cover all cases.
05:46So it only covers 33 quote-unquote high-profile cases.
05:51Talk to me about these cases, because one of the things we think about with AI is the selection bias,
05:57right?
05:58So how did you avoid that when you're building this AI Powered Database library?
06:03We are very conscious about selection bias, because I'm trained as an academic,
06:08and we do not want to cherry-pick cases that may fit in our bias.
06:14So what we do is we lay out the parameters, the criteria that we choose.
06:21We are looking at cases involving corruptions, criminal bridge of trust, and money laundering.
06:33That involves current or former elected representatives, whose cases have commenced or continued only after May 9, 2018.
06:51Okay, that's quite a stringent criteria.
06:54Yes.
06:54So who didn't make the cut?
06:58Tun Lim Leong-sik, he won't be here.
07:00You won't be able to find things about that.
07:02The only one whose case started before 2018 and continues here is Lim Guan-yeng.
07:08I noticed that Dathin Sri Rosemar is not on the website.
07:13Yes, because she hasn't joined politics yet.
07:15However, Mrs Lim Guan-yeng, Madam Betty Chiu, is in here because she was at one point an Ardun in
07:25Malacca.
07:26I see.
07:26Okay, so they need to be an elected representative.
07:30Yes.
07:31Okay.
07:31Yeah.
07:32Interesting.
07:32Okay, so let's go into what this website can offer in terms of data.
07:39Talk to me about the story first.
07:41I'm curious to know what story this website tells, what the data tells us.
07:46Let's go into the analysis of these corruption prosecutions here.
07:50What stands out to you?
07:51If I may come to you, Thao Ying, what stands out to you?
07:54What would you like to highlight to our audience about how some of these case outcomes are shaped by the
08:00different variables you mentioned earlier?
08:02Who's in power?
08:03Who's in the AG's office?
08:05Who is the public prosecutor?
08:06Who, what laws are being used to charge them?
08:09Talk to me about that.
08:10So when we look at all these cases, you would think that at the surface it's all different stories.
08:15But actually, it only tells one story.
08:17As in like in Malaysia, the outcome of the corruption prosecutions shaped not only by the law, but by various
08:25factors, right?
08:27Like prosecutorial discretions, the political timing, and also procedural complexity, right?
08:34So the first thing is that we thought about, okay, there are charges in 2018 after the change of government.
08:44There is a lot of high profile cases charged at that point in time.
08:50And the AG is Tommy Thomas, right?
08:53So under Mahathir's administrations, he initiated many cases.
09:01That is the power of the AG in institution cases, right?
09:08And then when we see, of course, cases take time to process.
09:11It doesn't, it's unfair to say that it has to be in his term that he has to finish it
09:17because cases does take time.
09:18Two, three years down the road.
09:20So we have seen all the cases that gone through the time and how many cases that at the end
09:26actually leads to convictions, leads to DNAA, leads to DAA.
09:33So that is where the database, when we look at it from the bigger pictures, you can see that a
09:42charge, when it first started until it ends,
09:45it actually has gone through different political, yeah.
09:48How many governments?
09:50How many governments?
09:51How many AGs?
09:52But the point is, it is a decision by the AG, right?
09:57Because under our constitutions, the AG and the public prosecutor, the AG acts as a public prosecutor as well before
10:03the separation.
10:04So what you're saying is, it's important to see the, who, which AG initiated the case and where, which AG
10:15had the outcome of the case.
10:17All right.
10:17You need to track that, which is what the database is doing.
10:20Correct.
10:21So you can see it's different AG, different administrations.
10:24It can be caused by different political situations.
10:27And because the AG's chambers is under the prime minister's purview, we should also be looking at who is the
10:37prime minister, the sitting prime minister at the time.
10:39Yes, exactly.
10:40Okay.
10:41And let's just, let's go to AI.
10:44So this is where you have so many cases, right?
10:47Okay.
10:47And let's just test it out.
10:48This is the AI-powered part of this website.
10:52Okay.
10:53So let's ask the question.
10:57Under which prime minister and AG, that Zahid got his DNAA, who were, who are on the prosecution team.
11:20Okay.
11:20It's been a while.
11:22And sometimes we know that if you use AI, there is a danger that the AI may be...
11:29Hallucinating.
11:30Hallucinating.
11:31Yes.
11:32Yes.
11:32And it would actually perform logical stretch.
11:36How do we avoid that?
11:37We avoid that by confining the AI to our database.
11:40Okay.
11:41Nothing from outside, from internet would come in.
11:44So you don't have to worry that someone can actually plant some misinformation and you get the wrong one.
11:49Excellent.
11:49So it's all here.
11:50So we enlarge a little bit.
11:53So, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi received a discharge not amounting to acquittal in his Yayasan Akalbudi case on September 4, 2023.
12:04At the time, the AG was Stunstri Idrus Harun.
12:07The prime minister was Anwar Ibrahim.
12:09The prosecution team involved Datuk Sri Gopal Sri Ram in the pre-trial process, Datuk Raja Razera Raja Toran, 2018
12:19-2023, and Datuk Dozuki Mokta during the trial.
12:24And if we look back at when he was charged, it was after 2018.
12:35Under which prime minister and AG that Zahid was charged for both his cases.
12:49And in case, if you want to know actually what are the files, where do you find that legal document,
12:56you press, you click here.
12:58It goes straight into it.
12:59And it shows 47 charges.
13:01So you can actually go down.
13:03Now, this is very useful for law students in case you want to study this.
13:07All these are here.
13:07They show you under which legal provision he was charged and so on.
13:12Why does it matter, Chow Yun, I'm probably going to ask you as a lawyer.
13:16Why does it matter what type of charges they are brought under?
13:21Is it because I noticed that the website also tracks that, right?
13:26Yes.
13:27I think what charges really depends on the evidence that the prosecution has.
13:34The laws that are used is depending on what evidence.
13:37Correct.
13:38What evidence.
13:39So they will have to look at the element of the offence and the evidence that support that element of
13:45the offence.
13:46And they will then decide whether it's charged under MSCC or in the Penalty Code or Criminal Bridge of Trust.
13:52Okay.
13:52So that is where the prosecutions, aka AG, will have that power.
14:00Can I ask you another question?
14:01I am curious to know under which Attorney General or Public Prosecutor did most DNAAs happen?
14:14Oh, okay.
14:16Because it's under the initiative of the AG.
14:20Before we answer this, I would like to show you this.
14:25When we talk about DNAA, most of the time we think that this means that the system is flawed.
14:31Okay.
14:32Because it gives us the impression that this would be duodajat.
14:36Some people committed crime, they got jailed, they got fined, but others just got away.
14:42Now, what we really need to know here is that we have to see a DAA happen when you can
14:54have someone completely acquitted.
14:57That's called DAA.
14:59Discharge amounting to acquittal.
15:02Okay.
15:02And that happen could be after a full trial.
15:04So that means that if you have any questions, you have to examine the entire trial to ask whether that's
15:10justified.
15:11Now, that's not what we look into.
15:14We have one-third of members legally trained like Chao Ying, but we dare not to do the job that
15:20says we can actually examine the whole thing.
15:22We are just looking into prosecutorial decisions and conduct.
15:27We want to see how many cases that actually happen where you gather DAA or DNAA because of the prosecutorial
15:37decision to withdraw charges, withdraw appeal, or commit some error, leading the court to come to that decision.
15:46So, now this is the situation.
15:49When you look into, you will see how it works.
15:52Because this website is not to make you angry.
15:56It's to make you be very clear of what happened.
16:01Okay.
16:01So here are the cases.
16:02Under Idris Harun, you have Musa Aman, Ahmad Raslan, Ahmad Zahidi, BLN cases, and Abdulaziz, Sharyu, Najib Razak.
16:14Under Tommy Thomas, you have Lim Guan Ying.
16:17So just the one, I see.
16:18Yeah.
16:18Just other cases.
16:20All right.
16:20Yeah.
16:21Okay.
16:21So that's the AI function.
16:24Can we talk about how this website actually looks at how much money has been involved in all these cases
16:37and what the cost is to the people?
16:41Right.
16:42So now let's move on to this.
16:44This one, you don't even have to use the AI because we have sorted it out for you.
16:48Amazing.
16:49So we do the cost to the right.
16:52So you could see all these cases, number one champion is IPIC, Najib Razak.
16:58Number two is still Najib Razak, one MDB.
17:01Number three would have been Muhyiddin.
17:03Number four, Musa Aman and Lim Guan Ying.
17:07I think Musa Aman probably slightly larger than Lim Guan Ying.
17:09This representation is really good because it gives people a clear idea of just how the scale of it in
17:18comparison.
17:19I mean, every bubble is important, but I think the size of the circles in comparison to each other is
17:25really quite startling.
17:27Right.
17:28And this website also has a function of…
17:31This is how you choose.
17:32Yeah.
17:32Okay.
17:33Let's say we show Najib Razak.
17:35Okay.
17:35What does it mean?
17:36Again, these are the cases that involve as long as the case has not been discharged as DAA after full
17:47trial.
17:48Okay.
17:48So if they get acquitted by court because of full trial, then we don't include them.
17:54So here, if you lump all the cases involving Najib, the total amount is $8.99 billion.
18:02That is enough to build 93 new schools or 34 new blocks of hospital.
18:12Now, it's still hard for you to imagine what it is.
18:15Now, the question to ask is like, let's say you are making your income of $2,864 a month.
18:37That is the average salary of a Malaysian.
18:40A Malaysian.
18:41The median salary.
18:42Median salary of a Malaysian.
18:44Okay.
18:44And this is how many years you have to work.
18:47It's 261,636 years.
18:54Then you get this much of money.
18:57Wow.
18:57And if you count that as sort of like, you have to work for 50 years of your lifetime,
19:05that takes 5,232 careers a person.
19:11I think I just want everyone to think about the opportunity cost here, right?
19:16This is the money that could have gone towards the development of our country.
19:22And we are only talking about all this number from the charges documented in court.
19:30We are not talking about anything else, say, interest that we have to pay off.
19:34So this is a conservative estimate.
19:37This is just exactly what the court documents say.
19:40Okay.
19:40So we don't put anything else, right?
19:43But you imagine that what it would cost in our development whatsoever as a derivation of this,
19:50that we leave it to anyone too.
19:51I have to say, I'm really amazed by the work that's gone into this.
19:56And I really am appreciative of Project Sama and all the collaborators,
19:59Malaysia Kini included, which is hosting this site for this public service
20:06that you're giving to the country, essentially.
20:08Can I ask you how you hope this information is used?
20:12What do you want the public to better understand?
20:15And how do you hope policymakers and journalists and lawyers and activists use this information
20:22that you've put out there?
20:23What would be the best case scenario?
20:24Chow Ying-Fa may ask you.
20:25Yeah.
20:25I think, of course, we put in a lot of efforts to do this.
20:29Of course, it can be improved.
20:30We can enlarge the database to include others' corruption cases.
20:37But I think, ultimately, we need to have a place where all these information are stored.
20:41It will be 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road, it will still be there.
20:47There will be a centralized institutional record of all these cases.
20:52And we, of course, hope that it can be used as much as possible, however way that we want
20:57to use it.
20:59Initially, we were thinking, who will use this kind of data?
21:02But when we think deeper, I think a lot of people can use it in the sense that you can
21:07use it for policy.
21:09You can use it for academic research.
21:13You can use it for story writing.
21:16You can use it for journalism, investigating work.
21:23So all this is there for them to use.
21:28Can I ask you, having looked at how important it is to see who is the AG in charge, how
21:36does
21:36this tie back to the fact that we will be having the revised bill of the separation of
21:41the public prosecutor and the AG?
21:44It's coming up.
21:45A lot of people think, oh, this doesn't affect me.
21:48But how would you say that it does?
21:50How does this website tie into that?
21:52Thank you very much.
21:53That's a very good question.
21:54We all want to have prosecutorial integrity, meaning that you get the same treatment when
22:01you come to a prosecution, regardless of how powerful you are, what status you have.
22:08And in order to do that, we need to ensure institutional independence.
22:13Second, we have to, on one hand, provide for prosecutorial discretion.
22:23And on the other hand, we need to have prosecutorial accountability, scrutiny.
22:30So the first part, if we get a bill that's completely take the power out from the prime minister,
22:38but to transfer it to parliament, then we would have the best chance of enjoying prosecutorial
22:50institutional independence.
22:51Now, why are we not proposing for the power to be vested in the hand of, say, Yang Li-Pertuan
22:59Agong to give him discretion?
23:02It's because whatever misconduct of the AG in the future PP, you need someone to take the
23:14blame.
23:14And that has to be elected politician.
23:17We just do not want that to be prime minister alone.
23:21We want it to be the parliament or parliamentary committee, so then you can hold them accountable.
23:28So that's the first part that I'm sure that we would have more conversation.
23:33The second part is entrenched in our federal constitution, currently under Article 145, Clause 3.
23:41And in the MN Separation Bill, it would be under Article 145, Clause 3.
23:52Okay.
23:53So that gives the prosecution that power, you cannot tell them what to do.
23:59And that is supposed to protect the prosecution, but it can also shield the prosecution from public
24:06scrutiny.
24:07From scrutiny, definitely.
24:07So this is why we are building this.
24:09We need two parts to ensure, to deliver the scrutiny.
24:14On one hand, it's parliament.
24:16The new prosecution should table annual report to the parliament to be debated.
24:22On the other hand, society would have to do something on this.
24:26You can't count on the parliamentarian.
24:28You have to be vigilant as well, which is where the PAUSE website comes into play.
24:33And on that note, I want to ask both of you, talk to me about how the public can play
24:39a role
24:39in it.
24:39Because this is not just a Project Summer initiative.
24:42This is the public can play a part.
24:45Talk to me about the Buy a Brick part.
24:47Sure.
24:47What is most important for us is for you to use this information, especially when election
24:52is coming.
24:53You're going to get two types of information, misinformation.
24:58One is that all politicians are the same.
25:00The other one, it would only highlight on certain politicians, those they don't like.
25:05Right?
25:05One is to get you frustrated.
25:08The other one is to get you angry.
25:10But in both cases, you will be blind.
25:12What we want to offer to you is a picture like this.
25:15You will find that every party actually has a share here.
25:19And some have more share than that because they have been powered for longer time.
25:24The whole point here is that we want you to get the right information.
25:28But for you to get that right information, spread this as far as possible if you are a
25:34digital content provider.
25:36Come here to dig out all our data.
25:40Whatever we can find for you, you can click in.
25:43For example, Musa Aman has the highest number of charges, 51.
25:47But what are these charges?
25:49So you click in, you will find the case.
25:52All these cases, you can find, go to the bottom.
25:55You are going to find all the files that you can get.
26:00So you would be able, this is this trial.
26:04The sources, yes.
26:04So you will be able to get all that information.
26:07All that information here.
26:08Just the click of your cursor.
26:12But we need the money part.
26:14Yes.
26:17So we built this website really from the scratch.
26:22And to be honest, we actually do not have funding when we first started.
26:27But Project Sama team thought about it and thinks that this is just too important that
26:32we cannot wait.
26:34And so we said, let's just do it.
26:36So at the time when we launched this, we also launched this Buy a Brick campaign.
26:43This is actually the inspirations of Malaysia Kini 2013, 2014.
26:49Yes.
26:50They sell brick.
26:52They crowd sourced.
26:53They crowd sourced and they're selling a brick.
26:55So we say, yes, we can also sell a virtual brick.
26:58And each brick will only cost 100 ringgit.
27:02And yeah, so this is the wall that we will build based on the bricks that you supported
27:09and purchased from us.
27:12And yeah, so we are slowly moving towards our targets.
27:15We only targeted 600 bricks.
27:17There's still available about 400 bricks available.
27:21This is how people can participate.
27:23Yeah.
27:23So you can participate by buying a virtual brick from us.
27:27And then we will put your name or your, you know, whatever names that you want us to
27:32put on, on this wall, which is for the accountability watch wall.
27:39Fellow Malaysians out there, we appeal to you to help build this civil society infrastructure
27:48for prosecutorial accountability.
27:52The whole project costs us $60,000.
27:56It's not huge if you divide by every Malaysian.
28:01It's nothing if you compare it with the amount that we have lost to corruption.
28:07And we are appealing everyone to buy one or more bricks of 100 ringgit.
28:12So far, we have managed to raise $17,900.
28:17We just need $42,100 more.
28:20With all this money, if you help us, we would be able to do more things for Malaysia.
28:26We appeal to your solidarity.
28:29This is our country.
28:31Let's make it better.
28:33Thank you both for being on the show.
28:35I appreciate your time.
28:36That's all the time we have for you on this episode of Consider This.
28:39I'm Melissa Idris signing off for the evening.
28:41Thank you so much for watching and good night.
28:42Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next episode of the episode of the episode
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