COMMENT | Consider this irony: Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced on Sunday that a list of names for the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on a former attorney-general will be submitted to the Agong soon.

This was less than a week after he was inexplicably given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) on 47 corruption and related charges.

Malaysiakini reported that Zahid said the name list will be tabled by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said to the cabinet.

“I feel that the minister of law and institutional reform should submit a name list to the cabinet to get the consent of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong for this RCI to speed up their work,” he said.

Given the rather strange circumstances of his own case where a deputy public prosecutor asked for the withdrawal of the charges against him, would it not be more appropriate, urgent, and relevant to form an RCI to investigate why this has happened instead of probing Thomas’ book?

And also investigate the other instances of...