Your columnist Dr Abdul Aziz Bari is correct to place Malay rights and their special prerogatives as being under the ambit of the Conference of Rulers ([#1]Unwise for politicians to encroach Rulers' domains[/#], March 14).

However, the Conference of Rulers is no longer the power that it once was and is currently unable to exercise any role other than that of pomp and pageantry. It is also unfair to blame the collapse of royal prerogatives in Malaysia to the machinations of Prime Minister Mahathir and other Umno leaders.

While Their Royal Highnesses the Malay Rulers continue to enjoy positions of wealth and privilege, resulting from their ensconced position as provided for in the Federal Constitution, they have failed to play a pro-active role in defending the Constitution, including the position of the Malays.

In fact, the Rulers have continued to neglect their role as checks and balances on the politicians. At the time of independence, the Rulers were not supposed to perpetuate a feudalistic hierarchy over the people, but to transform themselves into constitutional rulers, acting within the law and defending our Constitution against assaults from forces within and outside the country.

Their Royal Highnesses possess substantial powers to exercise this role. They could have, for example, defended former Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas and five of his colleagues in the Supreme Court against the onslaught of the Mahathir government in 1988, but the Rulers kept mum. The then Yang di-Pertuan Agong (Sultan Iskandar of Johor) became a tool for Mahathir to dismiss Salleh and it was one of the Rulers (Sultan Ahmad Shah of Pahang) who provided the documentary evidence that was used to dismiss Salleh from office.

Recently we saw how His Majesty the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and his son the Regent of Selangor meekly acquiesced at the roughshod and irregular way in which Putrajaya was disengaged from the rest of the state of Selangor. The district was subsumed as a Federal Territory, without even the chance for the people's elected representatives in Parliament and the state assembly being given proper and ample time to debate the issue.

One wonders whether the phenomenon is a result of the Rulers being too afraid to lose the wealth and benefits which they have acquired from the Barisan Nasional government as a sop to their silence. Their recent assertiveness, shown during the surprise appointment of Dzaidin Abdullah as Chief Justice, is a case of 'too little, too late'. The damage has already been done through the Conference of Rulers appointing such partisan and biased judges as Hamid Omar, Eusoff Chin and others to the bench.

The Rulers have always been vocal in defending their own rights and privileges as witnessed in the Constitutional crisis of 1983 and 1993. However, when it comes to defending the rights of the people against the government, the Rulers have failed miserably. We cannot seriously expect the Rulers to fulfil the role outlined by the writer when they have become plump and comfortable in their support of Mahathir.

Indeed, it was ridiculous for Keadilan to appeal to the King for a pardon after the first verdict of the Anwar Ibrahim trial was announced, because the Rulers have long distanced themselves from the struggle to defend justice and the rights of the ordinary citizens of this country. The Rulers, in short, are too out-of-touch to be of any use to this country.

Of course, nothing can be done about the weakness of the monarchy because the Rulers themselves do not want to change. Their position is assured by an exaggerated clause in our archaic Penal Code which punishes any talk of reforming the monarchical system with the mandatory death penalty. But does anyone really think the law in Malaysia is still respected by the people? Maybe only lawyers like the writer still put faith in the spirit and letter of the law. The rest of the country, I think, are too realistic to do the same.