COMMENT | Can a judge speak truth about justice without facing the executioner’s axe? This fundamental question lies at the heart of the recent controversy surrounding former chief justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat.

Her speech in Malta exposed the deepest fractures in Malaysia’s constitutional democracy. It revealed a constitutional crossroad by asking this question: “Will Malaysians choose constitutional rule, or arbitrary power?”

On April 8, Tengku Maimun delivered a landmark address at the 24th Commonwealth Law Conference in Malta. Her lecture, titled “Judicial Independence and Parliamentary Sovereignty – a crossroad?”, would ignite a firestorm that reverberates through Malaysia’s corridors of power to this day.

The speech was no mere academic exercise. It was a...