Shawdesh Desk:

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

In the dock stood a man of immense wealth and power, who, when he was prime minister, was quite literally untouchable.

Dato’ Sri Haji Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak – to give him his full title which denotes the high status he holds in Malaysian society – had challenged the judiciary for two years since his conviction and 12-year prison sentence over money laundering and abuses of power charges.

Just the night before his lawyers had filed a motion 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 getting justice. Despite the 42 criminal charges filed against him, he remains popular and influential.

Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat was unmoved.

She ordered Najib’s lawyers to get on with any submissions they wanted to make. Then, after a break for lunch, flanked by the four other judges on the five-member panel, she read out the 15-page verdict.

She found Najib’s conviction and sentence sound and not excessive, and the complaints raised in his appeal to be devoid of merit.

“We agree that the defence is so inherently inconsistent and incredible that it does not raise a reasonable doubt on the prosecution’s case,” she said.

Najib fell back in his chair, looking stunned. Within a few hours, a man accustomed to celebrity treatment found himself in a plain prison cell.

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

Even in Malaysia, which inherited relatively strong and independent judiciary when it became free of British colonial rule in 1957, political interference has compromised the reputation of the courts. So the clarity of the verdict against Najib has been widely welcomed.

“The faith of the public in the independence of our judiciary has been fully restored,” said Karen Cheah Yee Lynn, president of the Malaysian Bar Council.

“Their courage and steadfastness is exemplary in the face of the numerous challenges and tactics resorted by the former prime minister.”

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

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

“Malaysian judges were once held in high esteem for their competence and independence, with prominent roles in the global debate in defence of rule of law and human rights. They were certainly regional leaders in this regard.”

Mr Zarifi cites 1988 as the year in which the judiciary became both weakened and politicised – he traces it to the moment when then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad sacked the Chief Justice and two other senior judges to ensure he won a power struggle within UMNO.

The courts were then used to bring down Dr Mahathir’s political rival, Anwar Ibrahim, after he was sacked from the government in 1998 in a series of trials widely condemned by human rights groups as unfair.

In 2015, when the scale of the 1MDB financial scandal became known, Najib simply sacked his attorney-general, just as he was about to file criminal charges against the prime minister, and appointed a replacement who promptly cleared him.

The new attorney general said that the hundreds of millions dollars found in Najib’s personal bank account were a donation from an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family. Ms Cheah was one of a group of lawyers arrested and charged with sedition for protesting against that decision.

It was ironically Dr Mahathir’s dramatic reconciliation and renewed alliance with his former political rival Mr Ibrahim which allowed the opposition to inflict its first ever election defeat on UMNO in 2018 – and gave the judiciary the chance to re-establish its independence.

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

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

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

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

It has ruled at pivotal moments over the past 15 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 over the way rulings often appeared to reverse choices made at the ballot box has spilled into street protests and, sometimes, violent clashes.

Cambodia’s courts too have been accused of being used to cripple opposition to long-serving prime minister Hun Sen. The main opposition party, the CNRP, was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 2017 when it looked likely to beat the ruling party in an election.

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

It has been criticised in particular for the number of questionable charges filed against Nobel Prize-winner Maria Ressa, whose news organisation Rappler published investigations of 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 even retracted their incriminating statements against her and no trial yet been held after five-and-half years.

And in unapologetically authoritarian systems like those in Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, there is little pretence that the courts are independent of political pressure.

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

The events in the Federal Court this week have encouraged many Malaysians to believe that the judiciary is once again ready to perform its proper role.

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

“They are the checks and balances in the system. Where the executive and the legislature have gone down the wrong path, the judiciary must be independent enough to correct that. With a strong and independent judiciary, as displayed in Malaysia in this case, there is plenty of hope for true democracy to flourish in our country.”