Malaysia’s PKR in bind over judicial crisis, Anwar’s daughter at protest march

Nurul Izzah’s presence at the march goes against party line, is an ‘implicit rebuke’ of Anwar’s position on the crisis, says lawmaker Rafizi Ramli

A fresh quandary may be brewing in Malaysia’s ruling People’s Justice Party (PKR), after Deputy President Nurul Izzah Anwar joined a march calling for judicial independence while her party weighs disciplinary action on her peers for demanding an investigation into alleged meddling in the country’s judiciary.

Nurul Izzah, the daughter of Prime Minister and PKR President Anwar Ibrahim, joined nearly 1,000 lawyers in a march on the prime minister’s office on Monday afternoon to protest against alleged executive interference in the appointment of the chief justice.

Public attention on the issue intensified over the weekend when purported minutes of a Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) meeting in May were publicly leaked, exposing alleged attempts to fix judicial appointments.

Nurul Izzah’s presence at the march, however, sent the party into a tailspin after it launched an internal probe into calls by more than a dozen divisions to suspend her predecessor, Rafizi Ramli, and eight other party leaders, for questioning the government’s handling of the judicial crisis.

“Izzah’s attendance puts the party in an awkward position, given the official party line so far is to deny that there is a crisis in the judiciary,” Rafizi told This Week in Asia.

“Her attendance means she endorsed the [Malaysian Bar’s] demands, including the setting up of the [Royal Commission of Inquiry] which I advocated; and Anwar is known to oppose it.”

In a statement on Monday, Nurul Izzah called for an independent tribunal made up of senior judges to investigate alleged attempts to fix judicial appointments, stressing that it would “go a long way to preserve the faith in our systems”.

Her position, however, appeared to contradict her party’s view on her fellow leaders, who had asked for something similar just a week earlier.

On Sunday, PKR secretary general Fuziah Salleh said a report would be presented to the party leadership in two weeks on calls to suspend Rafizi and the eight others who held an earlier news conference on their own, urging for a royal commission to investigate the mounting judicial crisis.

Rafizi, who quit as economy minister after losing his party deputy presidency in May to Nurul Izzah – a race that critics said was tarred by nepotism – said the current predicament could end up dividing the party further between Anwar and his daughter.

“If the reason for mounting a challenge against me is to provide better coherence in PKR leadership – that is, to make sure the deputy president is aligned with the president – her attendance [at the march] is an implicit rebuke of her father’s position in this issue,” Rafizi said.

“If this continues in the future, it creates more confusing signals to party members and voters.”

The judicial crisis is centred on Federal Court Judge Terrirudin Salleh, a former attorney general and rumoured front runner for the judiciary’s top post.

Terrirudin had allegedly tried to pressure recently retired chief justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat to rule in favour of certain parties in an unspecified case and allegedly attempted to push for the reappointment of judges linked to ongoing trials, according to earlier reports on the purported JAC minutes leaked on Saturday.

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Terrirudin’s former office, the Attorney General’s Chambers, has dismissed the claims as “speculation”.