HOW BLIND CAN COMMITTEES BE ?........ ( Article by Professor Hu Chi Ku Chi )

Answer : Not half as blind as the Penak Chinese Association committee was deemed to be, when the Federal Court judge of Malaysia,  Abdoolcader J.,  gave his judgement during the closing stages of an appeal, in the case of Chong v.Yong (1978).

Here the expelled member Yong won his case against the club hands down,  because the court believed that committee had shown " a total disregard of the fundamentals of fair play in action as to notice, hearing, due inquiry and also bias ", rendering the purported expulsion of the respondent wholly invalid. 

With reference to the committee's blindness , and blatant disregard to fair and proper procedure,  the judge made the following analogy : " Any attempt to look for the requisite fundamentals in this case would be reminiscent of a search by a sightless septuagenarian for a black cat in a feline sanctuary in Erubus, and I would express the hope that this judgement will have provided a stick or, better still, a guide-dog to obviate a recurrence of the events under consideration in any similar situation ". 

Clearly then, committee members the world over continue to reinforce the truth, found in the old adage,  " men are blind in their cause ". Yet for many a far greater truth exists in that " there's none so blind as those who will not see " .  Such is the curse of wearing blindfolds woven from ignorance and bias.

( This article is dedicated to the man who campaigned long and hard to have a member slung out from his club, only to have the good fortune later on to be part of the committee, which was about to review another complaint of alleged misconduct by this errant member. Needless to say the idea of stepping down from any deliberations and/or involvement in the disciplinary proceedings never crossed the man's mind. )