SN Nair said the names of both personalities were mentioned several times by other witnesses who testified before the tribunal last month.
“On grounds of natural justice, Mahathir and Anwar must be called to give their side of the story,” said Nair, who represented clients in two previous RCIs, including the VK Lingam video clip in 2008.
Nair said unlike a court of law, the RCI is an executive tribunal operated on the basis of natural justice.
“The ordinary court operates based on both law and natural justice,” he said, adding that rules of evidence were not strictly applied in a RCI.
The lawyer said this in response to Anwar’s continued condemnation of the RCI into the foreign exchange trading losses by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) in the early 1990s.
Calling it a farce, Anwar criticised RCI chairman Mohd Sidek Hassan’s reply to his lawyer, Gurdial Singh Nijar, last Wednesday over the need for him to appear before the tribunal.
“I am astonished that the chairman replied that they have ‘yet to decide’ whether to call me.
“It would be farcical if this enquiry is concluded without hearing my testimony,” Anwar said in a statement on Saturday.
Anwar was finance minister from 1991 until he was sacked from the government by then prime minister Mahathir in 1998.
Mahathir’s lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla said he too has yet to get a definitive answer from the tribunal whether his client would be called to give evidence.
He said Mahathir was ever prepared to testify since the former prime minister’s name had cropped up several times.
On Wednesday, former finance ministry secretary-general Clifford Francis Herbert narrated that Mahathir appeared calm and composed when informed that BNM had suffered forex losses of about RM30 billion.
Appearing before the five-man tribunal, chaired by Sidek , Clifford related how Mahathir simply said: “Sometimes, we make profits and sometimes we make losses.”
The witness said the incident took place at the prime minister’s office in late 1993 when he along with Anwar briefed Mahathir about the billions in forex losses.
Nair said, in the video clip scandal, former chief justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim and former lawyer VK Lingam were called to give evidence over judicial fixing.
A client had captured Lingam allegedly engaged in a telephone conversation with Fairuz sometime between 2000 and 2002.
“They had their day in court and were also questioned by RCI members and lawyers for the concerned parties, with the permission of the tribunal,” Nair said.