The withdrawal of the charge against PH personalty Ramli will come as no surprise. It should never have been brought and would not have been except under the criminal regime of BN and Najib Razak.

While there is still merit in retaining a criminal offence of defamation for circumstances where the more usual civil proceedings are unsuitable, there is a grave risk that unscrupulous persons in positions of authority can use that criminal provision improperly. Which is exactly what happened here. So there may be merit in introducing some safeguard against such abuse., such as the Attorney General’s personal fiat for any such prosecution.

Of course that would still be ineffective where the AG was prepared to abuse his office, as with exAG Apandi, but we must hope that such a situation will never again come about in modern, democratic Malaysia.