A HIGHLY anticipated forum on the Rome Statute featuring academics at the centre of a controversy over the international treaty has been cancelled for unknown reasons.

The forum was to take place at the Faculty of Law of Universiti Institut Teknologi Mara (UiTM) this afternoon. However, The Malaysian Insight found the auditorium where the forum was to take place shuttered and in darkness.

Legal experts Prof Dr Rahmat Mohamad, Assoc Prof Dr Shamrahayu Abd Aziz, Fareed Mohd Hassan and Hisham Hanapi were to have been the speakers.

Last month, the four submitted a paper to and briefed the Conference of Malay rulers on what they said were the legal implications of Malaysia acceding to the Rome Statute that would make Malaysia a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

It was their argument that ratification would threaten the royal institution that had supposedly convinced the Malay rulers to oppose the government’s plan to sign the treaty.

At a forum in Universiti Malaya on the same subject on April 27, however, Attorney-General Tommy Thomas and other legal experts argued that the statute poses no threat to the position of the constitutional monarchs.

The speakers also accused the four academics of misleading the Malay rulers.

The forum today was seen as an opportunity for the four to defend their stand. Malay monarchy expert Prof Dr Zainal Kling, who chairs UiTM’s Malay rulers institution, was also to have appeared at the event.

A law faculty staffer said the department was neither informed of today’s event nor its cancellation.

“This is an event under a different department, they’re just using our auditorium,” said the staff, who declined to be named. – April 30, 2019.