Najib Abdul Razak has been convicted. The beneficiary has been named. The money trail has been proven. The lie has been established.
However, one question still hangs over Malaysia’s justice system:
If Najib is guilty, what about those who stopped the system from working?
This is not about revenge. It is not even about blame. It is about how Malaysia’s institutions failed, quietly, procedurally, and without consequence.
In truth, the system failed, so, for that reason, Apandi Ali matters now.
The former attorney-general (AG) should not be viewed as a cartoon villain or a political caricature, but he should be examined as a case study in institutional collapse.
How was it possible that a man with enormous legal power, albeit exercised without transparency, was able to neutralise justice without ever stepping into a courtroom?
The most dangerous failures in governance don’t make headlines. They happen quietly inside offices, look lawful on paper, and hide behind the shield of discretion.
From 2015 to 2018
The timeline of decisions, from 2015 to 2018, is revealing.
Year 2015 was about "removal and reset": In July 2015, the then AG Abdul Gani Patail was abruptly removed and replaced by Apandi.
Shortly after that change, the multi-agency special task force investigating 1MDB, which involved the AG's Chambers, Bank Negara Malaysia, the police, and MACC, was disbanded or rendered inactive, with key officials reassigned.
Investigative momentum slowed before fracturing. This was not a courtroom event. It was an institutional decision.
Year 2016 was about "No Further Action": In January 2016, Apandi announced that Najib had committed no offence in relation to funds that later proved, in court, to originate from SRC International and 1MDB-linked sources.
Apandi classified the investigation papers as “No Further Action” (NFA).
Years later, under oath, Apandi testified that he had classified the 1MDB investigation as NFA even though investigations were not completed when he left office.
He claimed witnesses had absconded, and evidence was missing; however, he did not dispute that investigations remained unfinished.
As a result, no charges were brought, and no prosecution was tested in court. That distinction matters.
From 2016 to 2018, prosecutorial discretion was exercised in a way that consistently terminated lines of inquiry rather than advancing them.
Resistance, not cooperation
During later High Court proceedings, Apandi acknowledged that mutual legal assistance (MLA) from foreign jurisdictions could assist investigations, yet he also argued that cooperating with foreign authorities might prejudice local probes.
This was a position the court found difficult to reconcile.
Court documents recorded questions as to why Malaysian authorities did not accept or offer MLA to the Swiss AG or the US Justice Department, despite those agencies actively investigating 1MDB-linked transactions. International investigators encountered resistance, not cooperation.
These are documented decisions and judicially recorded observations, not speculation. Decisions matter, especially when made by an AG.
This was more dangerous than acquittal, because justice was not defeated in court. Justice was neutralised before it reached the court.
An acquittal can be scrutinised, appealed, criticised, but a prosecution never brought leaves no judgment, no reasoning, no institutional memory.
This is why the Court of Appeal later observed that Apandi’s conduct created the impression that the 1MDB scandal had been covered up.
Impression matters, because justice depends on public trust, and once public trust in justice is damaged, the entire system weakens. Najib’s conviction closes one chapter, but it exposes another.
Silence is not neutrality
In 2022, a police report was lodged concerning Apandi’s role during his tenure as AG, and investigations were publicly acknowledged.
Since then, there has been no public accounting, no conclusion and no explanation.
Silence is not neutrality. Silence is a decision. Decisions made without explanation are exactly how institutions decay.
In the post-Najib era of the country, Malaysians were promised reform after 2018. This meant independence of institutions, the separation of powers and no more political shielding.
The political shielding operated as a buffer between power and accountability and effectively insulated decision-makers from ordinary processes of accountability.
Today, the most important test of reform is not whether we punish villains, but whether we confront the enablers.
So, if no explanation is required for shutting down investigations, no accountability follows institutional inaction and no lessons are publicly articulated, then the system has not learnt any lesson.
In other words, without accountability and transparency, institutions have failed to learn anything from past inaction.
Loyalty safer than law
The message to the rakyat is simple: Loyalty is safer than law. Delay outlasts outrage. Time protects those who do nothing.
This is precisely what citizens observe in Malaysia today, across successive administrations, whenever a major scandal erupts: 1MDB, the Scorpene procurement saga, Altantuya Shaariibuu’s murder, the littoral combat ships navy scandal, the disappearance of Pastor Raymond Koh, and the unresolved case of M Indira Gandhi’s daughter.
In each, loyalty appears safer than law, delay outlasts outrage, and time protects those who do nothing.
Apandi matters now, but he is not unique. He is repeatable.
If Malaysia does not explain what went wrong, and not just who was wrong, then the next AG inherits the same dangerous ambiguity. Unchecked discretion. Opaque decisions. No consequences.
More importantly, that is not reform, but it is a relapse.
So, while Najib’s conviction tells us who benefited, it is Apandi’s silence which forces us to ask who enabled.
Until Malaysia answers with honesty, accountability remains incomplete.
If Najib is guilty, what about those who stopped the system from working? - Mkini
MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army, and the president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO). Blog, X.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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