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Constitutional Conflicts in Contemporary Malaysia. By H.P. LEE. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995. xxiv, 155 pp. $45.00.
This thin volume is a straightforward account of how the Malaysian Constitution came into being, and how, successively, it has been changed significantly within the past decade. In particular, it focuses on the three major constitutional crises -- the 1983 constitutional crisis, the 1988 judiciary upheaval, and the removal of royal immunities in 1992-93. In each of these crises, the executive emerged as the winner in constitutional terms with greater and centralized powers within the office of the prime minister. The equilibrium of power between the executive, the judiciary, and the hereditary rulers, as envisaged by the original framers of the Malaysian Constitution, was broken with impunity.
In 1983, Mahathir tried to clarify the role of the office of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (king) and its prerogatives. Mahathir decided that some rulers (under Malaysia's unique monarchy system, the Malay sultans take turns to be king) might be more assertive than others and could create trouble for him when they became king. Mahathir wanted a king who would accept, without question, all...