By Raziz Rashid
Malaysia’s debate over a dedicated Ministry of Law is not a narrow administrative tweak; it is a test of whether institutional reform can be organised, resourced and delivered at the pace of public expectation.
When Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim told the Asean Law Forum that justice must be felt in people’s lives, he captured the core of the challenge. “It is not enough for justice to exist in principle. It must be felt in the lives of our people. The law must empower and protect, not intimidate or exclude.”
The argument for a stand-alone ministry begins with that simple standard of lived justice rather than abstract principle.
A dedicated ministry would create a clear centre of gravity for legal policy. For too long, reform has depended on dispersed units that cannot, by design, coordinate a multi-year legislative programme, align cross-portfolio impacts or give citizens a publicly visible calendar of what is being drafted, when consultations will run and how new rules will be implemented.
The government’s consideration of a ministry is therefore less about bureaucratic rebranding and more about building an engine room for coherence at home and credibility abroad.
The Prime Minister framed the proposal in those terms, noting the need to strengthen the national legal ecosystem and to engage regional partners in advancing the rule of law, especially within ASEAN.
It is important to recall that Malaysia once had a dedicated Ministry of Law, which was dissolved in 1995, with its functions absorbed into the Prime Minister’s Department under the Legal Affairs Division. Its absence since then has left reform efforts scattered, dependent on fragmented structures without a single institutional anchor.
Personnel and political will matter, and here Malaysia has an advantage. Anwar has publicly recognised that his law portfolio is helmed by a minister who is energetic and focused on delivering change quickly, a nod to Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said’s role in pushing reforms up the agenda.
Her recent initiatives have deliberately moved reform from rhetoric to reach. The government is expanding mobile courts to Peninsular Malaysia and advancing a Legal Aid and Public Defence Bill so that representation no longer depends on ability to pay.
As Azalina put it, “InsyaAllah, we will continue to drive the success of the legal reform agenda, which not only benefits Malaysians but also positions Asean as a just, resilient, and prosperous region.” The momentum is real, and it strengthens the case for giving reform a permanent institutional home.
The value of a ministry, however, is not simply that it would launch more initiatives. It is that it could connect them. A ministry can standardise how problems are defined, how stakeholders are consulted, how drafts are tested against evidence, and how implementation is measured.
It can insist on publication of impact assessments and post-legislative reviews so that bills do not drift from noble intent to unintended consequences. It can set service standards for drafting timetables and open data on regulatory performance.
Citizens should not have to guess when help will arrive or how a new law will be enforced. A ministry built to plan, prioritise and publish would make reform legible and therefore accountable.
The academic case for institutionalising law reform is equally plain. Expecting small legal units, scattered across ministries, to do horizon scanning and system redesign while handling daily advisory work is unrealistic.
What Malaysia lacks is a standing capacity to research and recommend change at scale, insulated from partisan incentive but connected to government’s duty to govern.
Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi states the point with useful clarity: “There is a pressing need for a full-fledged, independent and permanent Law Reform Commission, one that can respond to the evolving needs and complexities of modern society.”
A commission with that mandate, anchored to a Ministry of Law that sets priorities and secures resources, would give the country the long-term brain it needs for a long-term challenge.
There is also an external logic that an international audience will recognise. The ASEAN Law Forum has pushed for deeper cooperation in arbitration, mediation and alignment with international standards. That is not an academic wish list. It is how confidence flows across borders.
Investors and trading partners watch for certainty in enforcement, clarity in dispute resolution and predictability in regulatory timelines.
A ministry that can speak across domestic portfolios and engage counterparts in ASEAN would let Malaysia shape the regional legal agenda rather than react to it. It would also make it easier to carry commitments from the conference hall to the statute book.
Sceptics worry that a ministry could duplicate the Attorney General’s Chambers or legal units inside line ministries. The concern is legitimate, but it is not fatal. The solution is to draw the jurisdictional line plainly.
The Chambers prosecutes and advises the government of the day; it must remain distinct from policy advocacy. The judiciary adjudicates; it must remain independent.
A Ministry of Law would set policy, run transparent consultation and drafting processes, maintain the legislative programme, and steward a Law Reform Commission. In other words, it would complement, not displace, existing institutions, while providing the coherence and leadership those institutions cannot supply on their own.
Sequencing also matters. Reforms win public trust when they arrive in an intelligible order and when officials are candid about enforcement. Consider the Government Procurement Bill 2025 now before Parliament. Its credibility will rest not only on prohibitions and penalties, but on the practical pathways for reporting violations, the independence of enforcement units and the metrics by which outcomes are tracked.
A Ministry of Law could integrate those elements into a published reform calendar and ensure procurement rules are read alongside other integrity measures and sectoral legislation. The point is not to centralise for its own sake, but to make separate efforts add up to a cleaner whole.
Leadership is the hinge between design and delivery. The Prime Minister’s public endorsement of a dedicated ministry, issued on a regional stage where statements are judged against peers, sends a signal to the civil service and to Parliament that reform is a governing priority, not a side project.
Azalina’s framing of access to justice as the organising principle gives that priority shape on the ground. Experts and the Bar have added a blueprint that is both ambitious and workable, arguing that a full ministry can improve efficiency and strengthen public confidence in the administration of justice. The alignment is rare. It should be used.
None of this erases the hard parts. Capacity must be built, not wished into being. Malaysia needs more legislative drafters, policy economists and technologists who can translate consultation into clauses and clauses into coherent law.
Independence for a Law Reform Commission must be ring-fenced without isolating it from executive priorities. Federal leadership must support, not smother, innovation within state legal systems.
And as new domains emerge, from artificial intelligence to data protection to cross-border insolvency, the ministry must cultivate specialised expertise while keeping the public interest visible.Those challenges argue for decisiveness, not delay. Malaysia has a window in which political incentives and policy needs align.
The Prime Minister has set the direction. Azalina has returned reform to first principles of access, delivery and dignity, and she has demonstrated how to make that visible to ordinary families through mobile courts and public defence.
Scholars have mapped the institutional architecture that will let change outlast a single parliamentary term. The choice now is between ad hoc fixes and a ministry with the remit and discipline to design, draft and deliver law that people can understand and trust.
The government should take the chance it has created and establish a Ministry of Law that meets the standard the Prime Minister set. Justice must be felt, and the way to make that feeling real is to build the institution that can deliver it.
The question that now hangs over Putrajaya is whether Prime Minister Anwar is prepared to elevate the Legal Affairs Division, long confined within his department, into a full-fledged Ministry of Law once again, standing not as a subsidiary, but as an institution with the independence and authority to carry reforms forward.
(The views expressed here are entirely those of Raziz Rashid, a strategic communications consultant, former Head of Corporate Communications at the Prime Minister’s Department, and Chairman of Pertubuhan Sukarelawan Siber Selamat).