By Melissa Chi
July 12, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, July 12 — Raja Aziz Addruse, one of the country’s most distinguished and respected lawyers, died today after a long illness. He was 74.

He was elected a commissioner of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in 2006. Raja Aziz was the third Malaysian to be elected to this prestigious post after former Lord President Tun Mohd Suffian Hashim and senior lawyer Param Cumaraswamy.

Raja Aziz (picture) was elected Bar Council president three times, the first from the 1976-1978, then 1988-1989 and then for the 1992-1993 term.

He appeared before the courts in a variety of high-profile human rights and rule-of-law cases. He was the lead counsel for Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy I case.

He was also a member of the Malaysian National Society of Human Rights.

He studied law at the University of Bristol.

“Fundamental liberties no longer exist; this is a harsh thing to say but the courts don’t seem to think that fundamental rights are important.

“To me, the constitution now means nothing because it can be changed at any time,”

Raja Aziz had said at a session themed “What the Constitution means to me” in 2007.

The senior constitutional lawyer said on the last day of the 14th Malaysian Law Conference that the checks and balances that were in the 1957 constitution did not exist anymore.

Tan Sri L.C. Vohrah, a long-time friend of Raja Aziz, and a retired High Court judge, had described Raja Aziz as “a man of immense integrity and a self-effacing person” who deserved to be elected to the commissioner of the ICJ position.

Raja Aziz will be buried after Zohor tomorrow at 1 pm at the Kiara Muslim Cemetery.