Whoever presided over the Kuching Sessions Court trial of a man charged with “insulting Islam” demonstrated a total unfitness to be on that Bench, or indeed any other.

The accused had pleaded guilty to charges which , as ordained by the Legislative Assembly, carry a maximum penalty of one year’s imprisonment and the “Court” converted that into nearly eleven years in jail by imposing consecutive penalties rather than concurrent ones.

The nearest parallel to that judicial absurdity would be an accused being sentenced to hang eleven times over for one murder! This “sentence”should be overturned at once and a proportionate one imposed. Whoever was on the Bench and imposed the absurd, vindictive, and senseless 11 year sentence should be removed, permanently, from any judicial office and, if retained at all in government service, sent for extensive re-training.