All eyes on Malaysian sultans’ meeting as Anwar seeks to defuse bombshell over top judges’ appointments

Various politicians from both sides of the aisle, including Anwar’s own daughter Nurul Izzah Anwar, have called for a probe into the allegations, while the police are also probing the alleged leak. 

All of this makes this week’s meeting of the Conference of Rulers a hugely important affair for national politics, political analysts and lawyers said.

Should Terrirudin emerge as a candidate to fill the vacancies in the judiciary leadership despite the cloud of controversy over him, it would mark a serious blow to Anwar’s already bruised stature as premier because of the slow pace of policy reforms that he promised before coming to office, lawyers and political analysts said.

There are also reputational risks for the country’s royalty, which has repeatedly been forced to play a direct role as peacemaker and final arbiter in Malaysia’s political crises, with four changes of government since 2018.

“Endorsing a judge faced with allegations that have yet to be set aside would send a very bad message,” said a partner of a large Malaysian law firm, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivities over comment on the royal households.

“Our judiciary is under siege,” said Wong Chen, a Member of Parliament (MP) and a senior member of Anwar’s own Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), who is part of a group of increasingly disenchanted allies of the premier leading an internal rebellion over the mushrooming judicial crisis.

What began as a battle of wills between the Anwar government and certain segments of the judiciary has morphed into a full-blown constitutional crisis between both sides.

Tensions blew out into the open early last week when former Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli led eight other PKR MPs demanding an immediate parliamentary investigation and the formation of a Royal Commission of Inquiry over alleged political interference in the judiciary.

For much of last week, the Anwar government was viewed to have ignored the increasingly loud noises of protests that began to grow from the Bar Council – which represents lawyers in Malaysia, and other political parties on both sides of the divide – over his delay in filling the vacancies in the leadership of the judiciary.

Under laws governing the appointment of top judges, the nine-member JAC proposes qualified jurists to the prime minister, who makes a final decision based on the recommendations. 

His decision is then put up for endorsement by heads of the country’s royal households who make up the Conference of Rulers.

The JAC is made up of judges as well as current and former members of the legal fraternity, and legal sources have told CNA that some in the JAC are aligned with the government while others are not.