Five other members of the commission are former Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Amar Steve Shim Lip Kiong, former Court of Appeal Judge Datuk Mahadev Shankar, former Solicitor-General Puan Sri Zaitun Zawiyah Puteh, Academician-Historian Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Khoo Kay Kim and Datuk Abdullah Sani Ab Hamid (as commission secretary).

I don’t have enough knowledge to justify if these people are suitable candidates to investigate the matter, and I am not sure if the royal panel could produce anything more meaningful than the earlier 3-men panel.

Regardless of the result, I doubt that the findings could change the current situation where our judiciary system is being controlled (or at least influenced) by our BN lead government.

Even if the tape is found genuine, the people that will be penalized would probably be Lingam and Fairuz while the rest of the VIPs that are involved would keep hidden behind the curtain and not being punished.

The tape might help raise some public awareness that our country administration is not as clean as the government is trying to portray… perhaps it is the only meaningful purpose that it could serve in the end.

Meanwhile, Anwar Ibrahim has released the full version of the video…

The independent panel will be headed by former Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Haidar Mohd Noor; National Service Council chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye and former Court of Appeal Judge Datuk Mahadev Shankar are the other two members.

Najib said panel member, who had accepted their appointments, would soon start investigating the matter with the support and cooperation of all agencies concerned. Their findings would be made public later.

[Thestar & Malaysiakini]