KUALA LUMPUR – Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said has defended her move to answer imprisoned former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s lawyer regarding the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s probe into Justice Datuk Mohd Nazlan Ghazali.
In a statement this evening, Azalina said the letter to Messrs. Shafee & Co was in line with her answer on the matter in the Dewan Rakyat and her responsibility as an MP.
She also said she had asked Shafee & Co to submit an official application directly to MACC if the firm wanted to obtain the investigation’s findings.
“As I pointed out earlier in Dewan Rakyat, any matter related to this (investigation) falls under the jurisdiction of the judiciary,” she said.
“The government always respects and continues to uphold the principle of the separation of powers doctrine.”
This comes in the wake of the recent revelation by MACC that Justice Datuk Mohd Nazlan Ghazali had allegedly breached the judicial code of ethics in presiding over Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s SRC International Sdn Bhd’s case.
In a letter that surfaced recently, Azalina told Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah that MACC had on February 21 presented its report on Nazlan to Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat over alleged breaches under the Judicial Code of Ethics 2009.
It is understood that Azalina’s letter, dated March 20, was a reply to Shafee’s three questions on MACC’s investigation into Nazlan.
However, several constitutional lawyers said the MACC should not supersede its authority by giving opinions of potential breaches of ethics by sitting judges. – The Vibes, April 6, 2023
