by Raziz Rashid
When Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said stepped onto the rostrum at a law-reform forum in Tashkent earlier this year, she did more than receive polite applause.
Delegates from Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East queued to ask how Malaysia had pushed through over 30 legislative amendments in barely two years while most countries were still drafting concept papers.
The episode illustrates a quiet transformation that many domestic observers have taken for granted. The Madani government did not merely promise institutional reform, it has been passing it in measurable bites and the numbers now form a scorecard worth scrutinising.
That scorecard is visible on Peta Reformasi Institusi (PetaRI), an online tracker that posts real-time updates on each bill’s journey from Cabinet to gazette without fanfare or paywall.
At the last count, 32 statutes have been amended or enacted since late 2023. The revived Parliamentary Service Act restored administrative independence to the legislature, ending three decades of reliance on the executive for staffing and budgets.
The forthcoming Rang Undang-Undang Bantuan Guaman dan Pembelaan Awam 2025 will widen legal-aid coverage to civil, syariah and criminal matters under one roof, establish a Public Defender division and absorb the functions of the existing criminal-defence foundation.
Changes to the Whistleblower Protection Act are equally consequential. Rather than an overhaul, the 2025 amendment introduces an oversight committee, clarifies ministerial responsibility, ties protection to the Witness Protection Act and sharpens revocation grounds—tightening the regime rather than rebuilding it.
New provisions in the Insolvency Act set the stage to release some 200,000 Malaysians from bankruptcy by year-end, a move that has economic as well as moral consequences.
The list runs from the Legal Aid Bill, now in its final drafting meetings, to the Online Safety Act whose enforcement order is imminent.
Numbers alone do not tell the full story, which is why Azalina likes to frame the tally as evidence that “the Madani reform agenda is very much alive and advancing, this is not mere
rhetoric.” Her refrain matters because critics maintain that true institutional change requires cultural shifts, not just ink on gazettes. Yet laws create incentives, incentives shape behaviour and behaviour builds culture.
A scorecard therefore, offers a disciplined way to track whether principles translate into practice. Start with the four pillars that underpin most of the amendments: accountability, access, transparency and future readiness.
Accountability measures include a proposed corporate-liability law empowering prosecutors to charge entire firms, not just low-level scapegoats, when negligence kills—legislation advancing separately through stakeholder consultations.
Access appears in the Legal Aid Bill and in amendments that decentralise small-claims courts, making justice less Kuala Lumpur-centric.
Transparency arrives with the reinstated Parliamentary Service Act, which forces committee reports and budget analyses back into the public domain.
Future readiness shows up in digital-age legislation such as the Online Safety Act and the forthcoming national framework on artificial intelligence.
Each pillar already has at least one measurable outcome. Under the Insolvency amendments, the first forty-thousand bankruptcy discharges have been processed ahead of schedule. Early returns from the refined whistle-blower rules show a 20 per cent rise in protected disclosures inside federal agencies, suggesting that precision, not wholesale redesign, was the missing ingredient. Parliamentary committees, funded through their own vote instead of the Prime Minister’s Department, held twice as many public hearings in the last session as in the entire previous term.
A scorecard that captures those metrics turns anecdotes into evidence and lets citizens judge progress without partisan filters.
Sceptics still argue that reform of the Judiciary and Attorney-General’s Chambers is proceeding too slowly, citing high-profile acquittals and discharge-not-amounting-to-acquittal rulings. Speed, however, is not always an asset. As Azalina notes, “systemic reform should not be rushed or dressed up for headlines, it must proceed in a structured, planned manner.”
Draft amendments to split the roles of public prosecutor and government legal adviser are circulating, but drafters are mapping salary lines, reporting hierarchies and transition funding so the shift will not stall halfway.
Malaysia’s own history shows that half-built institutions invite capture by the very interests they are meant to curb.
International recognition has gradually mirrored domestic metrics. The Asian-Pacific Forum on Legislative Reform cited Malaysia’s whistle-blower amendments as a regional benchmark, while a European arbitration institute invited Malaysian drafters to present lessons from the revived Parliamentary Service Act. Such notice matters because foreign investors treat it as a proxy for contract enforcement and political predictability.
The Madani scorecard is therefore not mere governance vanity; it is part of the country’s competitiveness arsenal. None of this implies that the work is finished. Three gaps loom.
First, the Judicial Appointments Commission still operates under guidelines that critics say lack binding transparency standards.
Second, state governments have yet to harmonise with federal bankruptcy reforms, limiting relief for cross-border debtors.
Third, both the corporate-liability bill and the AI governance framework are still in consultation; translating drafts into statutes will show whether momentum can outlast the first burst of enthusiasm.
How, then, should the government move from a ledger of achievements to a living public scorecard?
One answer lies in PetaRI itself, which could evolve into a quarterly dashboard that pairs legislative milestones with ground-level indicators such as public-defender staffing, proactive-disclosure compliance and insolvency discharge figures, while allowing civil-society audits to keep the numbers honest.
Corporate Malaysia and civil society must do more than comment. Boardrooms that crave predictable rules should press for brisk passage of the corporate-liability bill and the AI framework rather than hide behind industry associations that delay them.
Universities and bar associations can run certificate courses on the new laws so judges, prosecutors and private counsel do not learn on the job. Reform is a shared civic enterprise, not a spectator sport.
Azalina often reminds interviewers that “reform is not a race or a slogan, it is a planned process.” The phrase speaks to pace and permanence. A slow start can accelerate, but a hurried start that skips groundwork can unravel. Steady depth has already yielded breadth: dozens of enacted amendments in less than three years.
The next six months will be decisive. Parliament will debate the Thirteenth Malaysia Plan, creating legislative space for judicial-commission reform, while the Digital Ministry is slated to receive the AI governance proposal by month’s end, a timetable that could place Malaysia among the first wave of nations with dedicated AI statutes.
If those milestones hold, the Madani scorecard may climb from three dozen to 40 completed reforms. But reform fatigue is always a risk when economic pressures and electoral skirmishes jostle for attention.
A transparent scorecard is the antidote, showing citizens how far their institutions have travelled and how far they still need to go. It lets supporters cheer tangible gains and gives critics a factual baseline for constructive scrutiny.
Most of all, it honours the simple truth behind Azalina’s rallying cry: progress lives in numbers, not slogans. Malaysia has the numbers, the world is noticing and we are just getting started!
Raziz Rashid is a strategic communications consultant, former Head of Corporate Communications in the Prime Minister’s Department and Chairman of Pertubuhan Sukarelawan Siber Selamat