COMMENT | Recognise, mark and celebrate a Malaysian hero

COMMENT | Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak made headlines last Tuesday but it was a 51-year-old Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) alumnus who wrote the most distinctive chapter yet in Malaysia’s long march towards being a functioning democracy.

We would do well, for ourselves and our country, to recognise, mark, and celebrate the Malaysian hero that is Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali; and remember that it is only people like judge Nazlan who truly deserve that most often misused title in public service, "Honourable".

Over and above the ignominious fate of the former PM and Member of Parliament for Pekan, the sentence that was brought down on Najib by Nazlan will stand as a pivotal point in the wave of change that began during the closing years of the last century, through the Bersih and Reformasi movements.

The social-media mood last Tuesday morning, and the night before, was predictably cynical: "He will be found not guilty and walk away a free man. We will not be surprised, and we will all eat our nasi lemak and forget about it".

The evening after the verdict was delivered was also more of the same: "He will win the appeal and it will all be over."

Judge Nazlan had just made history - the former PM who became synonymous with "kleptocrat" faced 12 years in jail and a fine in the hundreds of millions.

But, in no time, it was all cast aside by fortune tellers who peddle a future of misfortune, sticking graceless graffiti on a wall that might otherwise say, "I have a dream."

The more thoughtful commentators likened Nazlan to Salleh Abas, who was Lord President of the Federal Court during the Umno "constitutional crisis" of 1988, and judge Harun Hashim, who went on to declare Umno "illegal".

Malaysia’s former king and Lord President Azlan Shah’s conviction of former Selangor menteri besar Harun Idris has also been resurrected as another distinctive moment in legal history.

Other notable moments have included the body of judgements handed down by personages such as former chief justice Mohamed Suffian Mohamed Hashim, former Supreme Court judge Wan Suleiman Pawanteh, and former Federal Court judge Eusoffe Abdoolcader.

Largely, those thoughtful words came from members of the legal fraternity and stalwarts of the Malay College Old Boy Association (Macoba).

Some took to social media to write about judge Nazlan’s "kampung boy" background.

His father, Mohd Ghazali Hanafiah, "served with distinction as an educator and retired as director of Examinations, Ministry of Education", according to one posting, ostensibly from Macoba.

Mohd Ghazali served as a teacher in MCKK in the early 1960s.

A former student of Mohd Ghazali and a schoolmate of Nazlan told this writer that Mohd Ghazali had four separate associations with MCKK, as a student, two stints as a teacher, and finally, the headmaster in 1971-1972.

Mohd Ghazali was the third Malaysian to become a headmaster. Previously, all headmasters were British expatriates.

His friends called him ‘Charlie Tot’. He married an employee of Telekom, and she became a housewife upon marriage.

The former student remembers a strict disciplinarian, who was somewhat stern. Nazlan was never a student under his father, but he "is almost a copy of his late dad. No nonsense, not much small talk. He takes his job very seriously".

Judge Nazlan’s verdict and sentencing in the SRC case will remain serious business in Malaysian jurisprudence.

His judgment and declaration on behalf of justice will be the focus of theses after theses for years to come.

For now, history centres on what justice has done, not how it may be undone.

Whatever may lie ahead in the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court, judge Nazlan’s verdict and sentence in the late hours of last Tuesday represented justice delivered.

His place in the story of 21st century Malaysia is as special as it is powerful, for the judicial and political ramifications to come.

Our collective history speaks of very special people in a very special nation, unique as a melting pot of our widely diverse population, and for our "bloodless" achievements in the arena of politics.

Defying instruments and institutions of government that should be in the people’s service, we have charted our own course. In 2008, Malaysians voted to break Umno’s two-thirds parliamentary majority. In 2013, the popular vote brought us tantalisingly close to a change of government.

Five years later, we finally cast off the chains that had held us all back for 60 years. What has followed in these last few months will never erase how the Malaysian voter brought Pakatan Harapan to Putrajaya.

In the same way, Jul 28, 2020, will inexorably and always be a historic day, come what may.

Judge Nazlan was at the centre of that momentous day, not the former PM who is, for now, a criminal.

We should celebrate the son of the headmaster from Kuala Kangsar.

WILLIAM de CRUZ was the first president of Global Bersih.

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