Royalty has been much in the news lately. Australian expatriate Harry Nicolaides has just been granted a royal pardon after serving five months of a three-year sentence for committing the Thai crime of lese majeste in his self-published 2005 novel, ‘Verisimilitude’.

And both sides of the constitutional contretemps in Perak are accusing the other of insulting Sultan Azlan Shah. Barisan Nasional (BN) claims that the opposition is showing disrespect for the Sultan’s legal judgment by going over his head, so to speak, to seek the opinion of a British QC over constitutional matters.