Whither Reformasi? Judicial independence at risk

Fourteen years have passed since the Bersih 2 rally on 9 July 2011.

That was when tens of thousands of ordinary people decided they had enough and hit streets to demand a better Malaysia.

Their demands were simple, nothing revolutionary. They wanted electoral and institutional reforms to improve the quality of democracy in Malaysia.

Fast-forward to the present. The then opposition parties that were part of Bersih 2 are now finding themselves in a position that was once thought almost impossible: in control of the federal government.

No longer powerless, they are finally able to translate into action the demands for reforms they so loudly chanted during the five Bersih protest rallies that played no small role in propelling them to power.

These parties have had two stints helming the federal government. They were part of the Pakatan Harapan government in 2018-2020 and they now form the core of the “Madani” (civil and trustworthy) government since 2022.

But what reforms have they managed to carry out thus far? Short answer: very little.

Bersih’s mid-term report card last year gave the Madani government a D grade for failing to implement many of the PH manifesto promises.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim then vowed to do better.

But have there been any discernible efforts since then to address the concerns raised by Bersih and other civil society groups? Hardly any, and in fact, the drive for reforms has arguably taken steps backward.

Let’s start with the mollycoddling of notoriously corrupt figures. Consider the infamous “discharge not amounting to an acquittal” granted to Umno president and Deputy PM Zahid Hamidi, who was facing 47 charges of corruption, corporate breach of trust, and money laundering.

More recently, disgraced former Prime Minister Najib Razak, now in prison after his conviction in one of several 1MDB-related corruption charges, was granted a similar discharge.

Former Sabah chief minister Musa Aman was suspiciously freed from 46 corruption and money-laundering charges. He was then shamelessly appointed as governor of Sabah, despite vociferous opposition from civil society.

Instead, the police detained three young people involved in a Gempur Rasuah Sabah anti-corruption protest.

We barely hear a peep from the so-called pejuang Reformasi in government. Imagine, they used to call for these corrupt figures to be arrested and even raised these scandals in their campaign to win elections. Now that these Reformasi champions are comfortably ensconced in the inner sanctum of power, keeping mum and not rocking the boat seem to be their choice of (in)action.

Ministry resistance

Besides lack of political will, the biggest resistance to reforms can be found within the government itself.

Case in point: the Ministry of Home Affairs. This calls into question whether the ministry is operating on its own agenda, not necessarily aligned with the PM’s promise of reforms.

Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail is simply overmatched for the job. He appears incapable of reining in rogue elements within his ministry, in particular certain police and other enforcement officers.

Enforcement officers from the ministry raid and seize ‘subversive’ books from independent booksellers with unchecked impunity  – a throwback to the repressive days of the Umno-BN regime.

It is shameful that the purportedly reformist Madani government allows such a heavy-handed approach to persist, as if the old regime is still running the show.

The incompetence and cravenness of the government have been clearly evident in the unresolved murder case of Teoh Beng Hock, an aide to Ean Yong Hian Wah, a former Selangor state assembly member from the DAP.

Teoh died in 2009 after a long, intense interrogation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), which was investigating his boss over an alleged corruption charge.

Sixteen years have passed and no one has been brought to justice.

Adding insult to injury, the federal government recently classified the Teoh murder case as NFA – no further action. That means, officials would close the case while the perpetrators are still at large and remain unpunished.

The DAP, part of the ruling coalition, has been awfully quiet. So too even Teoh’s boss, the former state assembly member.  

As an opposition party, DAP exploited the Teoh case as campaign fodder to highlight the depravity of the then Umno-BN regime. But now in a position to actually do something, the party no longer finds the Teoh case useful to its political ambition, which explains its deafening silence.

Missing persons

We are also met with a wall of silence over the disappearances of Pastor Raymond Koh, Pastor Joshua Hilmy and his wife Ruth, and Amri Che Mat in late 2016 and early 2017. They were allegedly abducted by police and have not yet been found until today.

Those who are responsible for these heinous acts remain free and the cases remain unresolved.

Where are the reformist voices inside government that seek closure for these tragedies? Why isn’t there an independent royal commission of inquiry to probe these cases further?

Judicial independence challenged?

We also see the independence of the judiciary being challenged by the delay of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) in appointing successors to retired Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat and other Federal Court judges.

Many worry that the appointments process is no longer independent, harking back to the dark days of the 1988 judicial crisis. That was when then Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad sacked the then lord president (as the chief justice was known then), Salleh Abas, and imposed executive control over the judiciary. This severely damaged the autonomy and reputation of the judiciary.

The current judiciary brouhaha reached a new level of urgency when nine MPs, led by Rafizi Ramli, from the PM’s own PKR party held a press conference calling for a royal commission of inquiry into the matter.

That’s not all. The Malaysian Bar is organising a Walk to Safeguard Judicial Independence on 14 July. Lawyers, joined by the public, will march in Putrajaya from the Palace of Justice to the prime minister’s office.

It is a commonly accepted practice to offer short-term extensions to retiring senior government officials and judges if they are deemed important enough to stay and if their successors have not yet been identified.

So it is puzzling why a notoriously compromised figure like the current head of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, Azam Baki, has had his tenure extended three times by the PM while a brilliant, courageous judge like Tengku Maimun is not accorded a similar privilege.

Does the PM have someone more pliable and loyal in mind to fill in the seat of the chief justice? If that’s the case, then it spells the end of judicial independence in Malaysia after working so hard over the years to repair its tainted reputation.

Landmark rulings

Tengku Maimun recently ruled on two landmark cases that have provided a glimmer of democratic hope in an otherwise barren and gloomy political landscape.

The first ruling was to strike down the Selangor Islamic authorities’ designation of Sisters in Islam, a well-known advocate for Muslim women’s rights, as a religious deviant. It was a win for those opposed to the weaponising of religion as a political tool and to the overreaching of religious authorities into constitutional matters.

The second ruling declared that Section 9(5) of the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012, which requires protest organisers to inform the police five days prior, to be unconstitutional.

Malaysia has come a long way  – from 9 July 2011, when the mass Bersih rally was met with violent suppression by the government, to the present, when the apex court ruled that the government has no right to restrict peaceful, non-violent protests.

It takes a courageous and independent judiciary to deepen democracy in the country while the political class sit idly by and regard the demands for reforms as mere nuisance.

It is up to us, the public, to remind them why they were elected in the first place.

Azmil TayebCo-editor, Aliran newsletter10 July 2025

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