The 13,500-strong Malaysian Bar has paid a very strong tribute to Raja Azlan Shah for the “high value” that the Sultan of Perak placed on the Rule of Law when he sat on the Malaysian Bench and at its helm during “the Golden Age of the Judiciary.”
Articulating this sentiment, Malaysian Bar president Ambiga Sreenevasan told the estimated 750 delegates, foreign Judges and academics as well as foreign diplomats that His Royal Highness “has been and continues to be an inspiration for the high value he placed on excellence, scholarship and integrity in the law.”
“Your Royal Highness is, in our mind, identified with everything that is good about the law in his country,” Ambiga said when in her welcoming address, adding that the Malaysian Bar “is therefore grateful to Your Royal Highness for agreeing to open this important conference for us.”
Ambiga was referring to the 50th anniversary of Malaysia’s Merdeka or Independence which was gained on Aug. 31, 1957 when, she recalled, “our first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman proclaimed that the Federation ‘shall be forever a sovereign, democratic and independent state founded upon the principle of liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare and happiness of its people and the maintenance of a just peace among all nations’.”
This vision of the Tunku found expression in the Federal Constitution, our founding document, she said. “The Federal Constitution contains the promise of an independent and sovereign nation governed by the Rule of Law.
“It embodies the hopes and dreams of the people. It encapsulates certain core principles and entrenches our fundamental rights and freedoms. It empowers institutions and authorities within its framework, subject always however to the principles of justice and the Rule of Law. It contains the multi-communal compromises that allow us to exist as a cohesive whole.
“Very importantly, it has the mechanisms that provide the checks and balances central to the Rule of Law. This includes, for example, the role of the Conference of Rulers who must be consulted before major appointments are made,” the Malaysian Bar president said.
Ambiga also said that central to the administration of justice and the functions of lawyers is the Rule of Law.
“There has been a resurgence in the discourse on the Rule of Law and its importance, not only in respect of the administration of this country but in the nation’s economic and social growth.”
“This resurgence is important as we see the Rule of Law coming under attack in nations around the world. In the words of Martin Luther King, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” she said.
Noting that two of the five principles of the Rukunegara refer to the law – Supremacy of the Constitution and the Rule of Law – Ambiga told her audience that it could not be denied that Malaysia “is a society that is grounded in the Rule of Law.”
Besides stressing on the Rule of Law based on two essential components – the submission of all to the law and the Doctrine of the Separation of Powers – her wide-ranging speech dealt with the importance of an independent and impartial judiciary. She emphasized the need to strengthen institutions. “Independent institutions are not a sign of weakness of the government but a sign of its strength,” Ambiga said.
The Malaysian Bar president also amplified, among others, the Bar Council’s stand on amending oppressive “detention without trial” laws and on reviewing the Printing Presses and Publications Act and the Sedition Act.
Ambiga also emphasized on the indispensability of Malaysia having a strong and independent legal profession.