Former Malaysian Bar president Ambiga Sreenevasan has rebuked the notion that a chief justice’s future should hinge on whether the prime minister takes offence to their remarks, warning that such thinking poses a dangerous affront to judicial independence.

She was responding to former law minister Nazri Abdul Aziz, who attributed the non-extension of former chief justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat’s tenure to her speech in Malta in April, where she called for the removal of the prime minister’s role in judicial appointments.

“Firstly, the comments by Tengku Maimun in Malta are not...