Najib Razak: The verdict that sent Malaysia’s untouchable ex-PM to prison

Earlier this week, inside the large, Islamically-styled Palace associated with Justice in Malaysia’s political capital Putrajaya, something remarkable happened.

Within the dock stood a person of immense prosperity and power, who also, when he was prime minister, has been quite literally untouchable.

Dato’ Sri Haji Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak : to give him his full title which denotes the high position he holds within Malaysian society — had challenged the judiciary for two many years since his conviction and 12-year jail sentence over money laundering and violations of power fees.

Just the previous night his lawyers acquired filed a movement to disqualify Malaysia’s most senior judge, and the country’s first female chief justice, from hearing his final appeal.

Outside the court, Najib’s supporters gathered, protesting that he was not obtaining justice. Despite the forty two criminal charges filed against him, he remains popular plus influential.

Chief Proper rights Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat was unmoved.

She ordered Najib’s attorneys to get on with any submissions they wanted to create. Then, after a split for lunch, flanked by the four some other judges on the five-member panel, she learn out the 15-page verdict.

She found Najib’s conviction and sentence sound and not excessive , and the issues raised in his attract be devoid of advantage.

“We agree which the defence is so inherently inconsistent and incredible that it does not increase a reasonable doubt for the prosecution’s case, inch she said.

Najib fell back in their chair, looking stunned. Within a few hours, a man accustomed to celeb treatment found themselves in a plain jail cell.

It’s hard to consider another example of such a prominent public figure within South East Asia being brought straight down by a rigorous and transparent series of trials. For all the impressive economic and social increases made in the region, the judiciaries remain weak, often corrupt, plus susceptible to political pressure.

Even in Malaysia, which inherited relatively strong and self-employed judiciary when it grew to become free of British colonial rule in 1957, political interference provides compromised the trustworthiness of the courts. So the clarity of the judgement against Najib has been widely welcomed.

“The faith from the public in the self-reliance of our judiciary continues to be fully restored, inch said Karen Cheah Yee Lynn, leader of the Malaysian Club Council.

“Their courage and steadfastness is exemplary in the face of the numerous challenges plus tactics resorted by the former prime ressortchef (umgangssprachlich). ”

During the appeal, the Bar Authorities berated Najib’s team, and his party UMNO, for its attempts in order to undermine public trust in the courts.

“Najib’s conviction signals, I hope, a return to form for your Malaysian judiciary, which had fallen from the heights of self-reliance, ” said Mike Zarifi, secretary-general of the International Commission of Jurists.

“Malaysian judges were once held in higher esteem for their competence and independence, along with prominent roles within the global debate within defence of principle of law plus human rights. They were certainly regional commanders in this regard. ”

Mister Zarifi cites 1988 as the year in which the judiciary became each weakened and politicised – he traces it to the time when then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad sacked the Chief Justice and two other senior judges to ensure this individual won a power battle within UMNO.

The courts were then used to reduce Dr Mahathir’s politics rival, Anwar Ibrahim, after he was sacked from the authorities in 1998 inside a series of trials widely condemned by individual rights groups since unfair.

Within 2015, when the range of the 1MDB monetary scandal became known, Najib simply sacked his attorney-general, just as he was about to file criminal charges contrary to the prime minister, plus appointed a replacement who promptly cleared him.

The new attorney general said that the hundreds of millions dollars found in Najib’s private bank account were the donation from an unnamed member of the particular Saudi royal loved ones. Ms Cheah was one of a group of lawyers arrested and billed with sedition intended for protesting against basically.

It was actually Dr Mahathir’s spectacular reconciliation and restored alliance with his previous political rival Mr Ibrahim which allowed the opposition to inflict its first ever election defeat upon UMNO in 2018 – and provided the judiciary the opportunity to re-establish its self-reliance.

But the resoluteness shown by Malaysia’s legal courts is in stark contrast to the rest of the area.

Even in Southern East Asia’s notionally democratic countries — Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines – the particular courts often deliver questionable or confusing verdicts and are accused of being ridden with corruption, and of being swayed by effective groups or individuals.

The quality of idol judges and lawyers is also sometimes poor : in Thailand, where judges, not juries, decide the outcome of trials, candidates as young as 25, with small legal experience, can be appointed to the work.

Thailand’s judiciary can also be charged with used as a political device, the so-called “judicialisation of politics”. The particular accusation has usually been levelled against its highest court in particular, the Constitutional Court.

It has ruled at critical moments over the past fifteen years to dissolve political parties, disqualify prime ministers and members of parliament, and unseat governments – all of them verdicts which favoured the conservative, royalist establishment.

Frustration within the way rulings often appeared to reverse options made at the ballot box has leaking into street protests and, sometimes, violent clashes.

Cambodia’s courts too have already been accused of being utilized to cripple opposition in order to long-serving prime minister Hun Sen. The main opposition party, the particular CNRP, was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 2017 in order to looked likely to defeat the ruling celebration in an election.

Within the Philippines the judiciary’s reputation suffered greatly under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

It has been criticised in particular for the variety of questionable charges submitted against Nobel Prize-winner Maria Ressa, whose news organisation Rappler published investigations associated with Mr Duterte; and also for the incarceration of one of his staunchest critics, Senator Leila de Lima, on drug charges she says are trumped up.

Some witnesses have actually retracted their incriminating statements against her and no trial yet been held right after five-and-half years.

And unapologetically authoritarian systems like those within Vietnam, Laos plus Myanmar, there is small pretence that the courts are independent of political pressure.

Within none of these countries is it possible to imagine someone of Najib’s prominence and influence being sent to jail, exactly where, according to officials in Kajang prison, he is being treated the same as all the other inmates.

The events in the Federal Court immediately have encouraged a lot of Malaysians to believe which the judiciary is once more ready to perform its proper role.

“The judiciary is the last bastion for protecting the rule associated with law, in a democratic country that has a separation of powers”, says Ms Cheah.

“They are the bank checks and balances in the system. Where the professional and the legislature have gone down the wrong route, the judiciary must be independent enough to correct that. With a solid and independent judiciary, as displayed within Malaysia in this case, there is certainly plenty of hope for correct democracy to achieve our country. ”