Positions untenable: The academics who advised Rulers on Rome Statute

Dear Dr Maszlee Malik

I wish to refer to the case of the four academics namely Associate Prof Shamrahayu Abdul Aziz of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Dr Fareed Mohd Hassan and Hisham Hanapi of Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) and Prof Rahmat Mohamad of Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) who together offered advice to the Conference of Rulers on the above subject recently.

Being employed by public institutions, they are all public servants. As such my contention is that they are guilty on three counts as follows:

First, unless they had received prior permission from their respective vice chancellors, they went over the heads in offering advice to the Conference of Rulers.

Second, they went against government policy which had already agreed to accede to the Rome Statute.

Third, they gave erroneous advice against acceding to the Rome Statute. Indeed, they were invited to an open forum last Saturday 27th April to defend their views but they all either declined or did not respond.

Therefore, I am of the opinion that their positions in their respective universities are no longer tenable.

Sincerely,

Tan Sri Alwi Jantan (G25)

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