INTERVIEW | In his first major interview since his appointment as attorney-general three months ago, Tommy Thomas spoke on the mammoth task ahead to amend or repeal a litany of oppressive laws as pledged by Pakatan Harapan.

"AG’s Chambers has prepared a list of the promises that the PH [Pakatan Harapan] made in the manifesto. The list for law reforms runs to nine pages - so many Acts are mentioned. It is just an unbelievably tall order,” Thomas told Malaysiakini and The Edge in a 90-minute joint interview held at his Putrajaya office last Thursday.

"And it's understandable because they are trying to clean up after 60 years of one coalition’s repressive laws. Looking at this law reform list in the manifesto, the process may take as long as a decade!" the 66-year-old AG said.

Therefore, he wanted the various ministries and stakeholders to be actively involved in law reforms to hasten the process.

"The ministries must help out. Ministers must push their respective ministries. Let's take the Universities and University Colleges Act, that's under Education [Ministry]...

"What we would really want to speed up the process is for the education minister to push his ministry and his legal advisors to prepare amendments and pass them to us. Our parliamentary draftsman will have the final say. The reason I say this is because as the stakeholders, the
ministry will presumably know more about Universities and University Colleges [Act] than anybody else," he said...