A FORMER senior cabinet minister dropped in my place last Saturday. He flew in early morning from Subang, planning to have a discussion with me on some land matters for a couple of hours before making a road trip in the afternoon southwards to Perak to attend his grand niece’s wedding.
I had not met him for many years since he left his ministerial post and I was not aware that he had turned his attention from politics to property development. We were together in London in the late 60’s, studying law at Lincoln’s Inn.
After our law studies, we left for home at around the same time too. I joined the Attorney General’s Chambers whilst (as he put it) he was “sucked into” politics. He told me he was active in politics whilst he was still in Form Five in Baling, Kedah.
He served in several ministries in his long political career. He regretted, however, that he was not given the opportunity to head a Law Ministry. Over coffee I asked him what would he like to see in a future Law Ministry? His reply was indeed refreshing “Certainy a real Law Ministry, not just a Department, stronger than what we have so far all these years”.
When I asked him whether we should have a political AG, he replied: “I am OK with the present set up of a civil servant AG, but the office of the Public Prosecutor and the Attorney General should be separated.”
According to the Attorney General’s Chambers’ (AGC) official portal, in 1951 the AGC (then known as the Department of Law) was classified as a Ministry and made responsible for all legal matters involving the Government.
In the ensuing years, the AGC was known by several names:
1957: Ministry of Home Affairs and Justice
1959: Ministry of Justice
1964: Ministry of Home Affairs and Justice
1974: Ministry of Law and Attorney General
1980 until the present day: Prime Minister’s Department (Law).
According to the official portal of the Legal Affairs Division of the Prime Minister’s Department (http://www.bheuu.gov.my), there are several agencies placed under its jurisdiction, including Malaysia Department of Insolvency (MdI), Legal Aid Department (JBG), Advisory Board, Parliament of Malaysia, Asia International for Arbitration Centre (AIAC), Judicial and Legal Service Commission, Office of the Chief Registrar and Federal Court of Malaysia.
Datuk Liew Vui Keong, the former minister in the PM’s Department holding the law portfolio (Law Minister) told the media in May 2019 that the PH government’s “pledged legislative reforms” would take some time to be realised, due to the “complexity of the task”.
That task involved over a hundred pieces of legislation, he explained. Admitting the slow progress, Liew added that the government had so identified 126 statutes requiring amendment or repeal. The process will take time as many of these laws are under the jurisdiction of their respective ministries.
Presently, the Law Minister appointed by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, is a former Universiti Malaya law graduate and Pas senior official Takiyuddin Hassan. Soon after his appointment, the Bar Council gave him “a laundry list of requests starting with the separation of powers between the public prosecutor’s office and the Attorney-General’s Chambers”.
In the run-up to GE14, the Pakatan Harapan had pledged to separate the functions of the two offices if it came to power. However, it later discovered that it could not do so because it lacked the two-thirds majority in the Dewan Rakyat.
Apart from modernising a long list of statutes, the Bar Council had also urged Takiyuddin to establish a Law Ministry and Law Commission, separate the office of the AGC and the Public Prosecutor, and end the death penalty.
What my old friend the former cabinet said to me last Saturday echoed what the legal fraternity hopes the new Law Minister can (and will) achieve in the years ahead.
The writer is a former federal counsel at the Attorney-General’s Chambers, and is deputy chairman of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War.