Akmal pointed out that when Anwar was pardoned and released from a five-year jail term for sodomy, no Cabinet had yet been formed by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who became prime minister after Pakatan Harapan won power in the May 2018 elections.
“I would just like to ask the attorney-general this: when the prime minister (Anwar) was pardoned by the then king, was it brought to the pardons board?” he said in a Facebook post.
Anwar received a full royal pardon days after the May 2018 general election and was freed after serving three years in prison. He later told Parliament that the royal pardon was granted at the initiative of the then Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan Muhammad V.
Akmal’s query was made in response to a statement by the Attorney-General’s Chambers earlier today which said that all pardon applications for offences committed in Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya must be submitted to the FTPB.
The AGC also said all proposals for prisoners in the federal territories to serve the remainder of their sentence under house arrest, including former prime minister Najib Razak, have to be submitted to the board.
It added that the king’s decisions on the advice of the board were subject to legal provisions to prevent such actions from being challenged in court.
In January last year, the Federal Court dismissed a lawyer’s attempt to challenge the legality of the 2018 royal pardon for Anwar. The court held that a decision made in an exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy could not be varied or confirmed by the court, and was not justiciable.
On Jan 6, the Court of Appeal will hear an application by Najib regarding his appeal to serve the remainder of his six-year jail term under house arrest. Najib claims that the provision was contained in a supplementary order to the pardons board decision on Feb 2 to halve his 12-year jail term in the SRC International case.
Najib had previously said the pardons board had omitted to announce the terms of the supplementary order and that the government was in contempt for not complying with it.
The FTPB is chaired by the king and includes the attorney-general, the federal territories minister and three others appointed by the king.
Anwar was a member of the board from November 2022 to December last year, when the federal territories came under the purview of the Prime Minister’s Department. In December, Dr Zaliha Mustafa joined the board after she was made federal territories minister. - FMT
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