ABSTRACT

This book provides a systematic and interdisciplinary examination of law and legal institutions in Malaysia. It examines legal issues from historical, social, and political perspectives, and discusses the role of law in relation to Malaysian multiculturalism, religion, politics, and society. It shows how the Malaysian legal system is at the heart of debates about how to deal with the country's problems, which include ethnic and religious divisions, uneven and unsustainable development, and political authoritarianism; and it argues that the Malaysian legal system has much to teach other plural polities, nations within the common law tradition, and federal states.

chapter 1

The creation of Greater Malaysia

Law, politics, ethnicity, and religion *

chapter 4|24 pages

‘Nazrinian’ monarchy in Malaysia

The resilience and revival of a traditional institution

chapter 5|27 pages

The particular in the universal

Negotiating the right to education and cultural–linguistic rights of minority children in East Malaysia

chapter 6|22 pages

Legal pluralism in Malaysia

The case of Iban native customary rights in Sarawak

chapter 7|18 pages

Religion, conversions, and custody

Battles in the Malaysian appellate courts

chapter 10|21 pages

Political and religious hegemony via the suppression of expression

Book banning and film censorship in Malaysia