Asking the right questions..

I woke up this morning after a night of waitering at the conference centre. It's not easy serving massive heated plates to 300+ people but the pay's worth it. I checked my email as i routinely do and discovered I've got mail from the Yahoo Malaysian Lawyer's Group which I'm somehow a part of. Well, doesn't hurt to get ahead of the game, does it?

One of the current issues brought up was this. I remember the couple being 'caught' slightly before I left for the UK and now the matter's been brought to trial. One of the lawyers on the group posted that '.. to get the right answers, we need to ask the right questions.' His thinking was that the lawyer on the defendant's side who had argued on the moral grounds of his defendants' actions should have instead argued on the officer's discretion in deciding what was defined as 'indecent behaviour'. IMHO, the situation was probably a case of abuse of power by the officials who most definetly slapped the fine on the couple after they refused to pay 'coffee money'. Furthermore, I think the judge is setting bad precedent giving further oppurtunities for such incidents to happen and I'm not very comfy with the notion of moral-policying.

That aside, I remember attending this one advocacy workshop and I remember being told that one of the hardest things about advocacy was not actually questioning the witnesses like you see on most courtroom dramas but choosing the right questions to ask. That can determine the difference between a case lost and a case won.