The latest legal outrage in Malaysia should move the May government and the UK Bar Council finally to do something to condemn, if not prevent, the criminal regime of arch thief Najib Razak from misusing his country’s absurd and nonsensical laws.

In brief there used to be, on the Malaysian Statute book, a “law” which, inter alia, prevented any publication of matters concerning the statutory body it concerned. That law was repealed in 2013.

In 2012 a prominent opposition politician, and member of the Malaysian Parliament, brought to light abuses in the statutory body concerned and was duly charged with that “offence” together with one other person.

In 2013 that ”law” was repealed. Notwithstanding that what passes for a prosecutorial apparatus in Malaysia continued the proceedings and, in 2018; with a general election pending; brought the matter before what can only by politeness be called a Court which proceeded to convict both accused. Sentence will be passed before the election is called and in criminal Najibland disqualification from standing in that election is a stone cold certainty.

All this abuse of the law and justice would be bad enough if the “law” in question was in force. But it was repealed in 2013 and that should have been that. In any civilised country that would be the case.

But Malaysia is no long a “civilised country” it is becoming clear. Its Prime Minister is a mega criminal, openly accused as such by the US Department of Justice. Even the FCO, though it would clearly like to, cannot avert its eyes from that fact. Nor should the British government which has brought international shame on itself by continuing to treat arch criminal Najib as a respectable politician; has sent a very senior Royal on an official visit to him and continues to behave as though nothing is wrong in Malaysia, a Commonwealth country

And that all because some of its principal financial supporters are intimately involved in Malaysian based trade. That is “politics”: to be viewed with the disgust it deserves.

But there is another body in London that is, or ought to be, concerned and that is the Bar Council. That body cannot be ignorant of the abuses of the law and the courts that are daily occurrences in Malaysia. Indeed its Malaysian equivalent must have made it aware of the multiple abuses of the law and the court system that have occurred in the recent past.

It is time, and past time, that the UK Bar Council, officially took note of the abuses of the Malaysian legal system, including the fact that the Chief Justice and the President of the Appeal Court are in office illegally, and called upon Malaysia to put all matters, legal and judicial, in order or face non-recognition. That is the least that a truly democratic country can do in the face of legal gangsterism as practiced in Malaysia.