BYU Law Review Volume 2012 | Issue 3 Article 1 9-1-2012 Law in a Plural Society: Malaysian Experience Zaki Azmi Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview Part of the Human Geography Commons, Law and Society Commons, Legal History Commons, and the Rule of Law Commons Recommended Citation Zaki Azmi, Law in a Plural Society: Malaysian Experience, 2012 BYU L. Rev. 689 (2012). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview/vol2012/iss3/1 This Conference Proceeding is brought to you for free and open access by the Brigham Young University Law Review at BYU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in BYU Law Review by an authorized editor of BYU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. 01-AZMI.FIN (DO NOT DELETE) 2/8/2013 2:39 PM Law in a Plural Society: Malaysian Experience Address Given by Former Chief Justice of Malaysia, Zaki Azmi* I. INTRODUCTION This paper concentrates mainly on how Malaysia, a country composed of many races and religions, creates and enforces its laws in order to sustain the peace that has lasted more than half a century. I have recently retired as a judge, so my view on this subject is from a judge’s perspective. Malaysia is located just north of the equator, about halfway around the world from Utah. It is geographically divided into two main regions by the South China Sea. These two regions are the Peninsula Malaysia and Sabah and Sarawak. Peninsula Malaysia was known as Malaya, but in 1963, the British colonies