"What we do in life echoes through eternity"... General Maximus Decimus Meridius cried out as the Roman Legion under his command entered the final war against Germania in the Oscar-wining movie, The Gladiator.

Similarly, the convictions and principles espoused by a human rights advocate during his lifetime continues to reverberate among his family, friends and colleagues a decade after his demise, as seen in a book 'Azmi Khalid, Human Rights Advocate, A Tribute' launched today.

The book was penned by several individuals, including the late Azmi's widow Rohana Yusuf, and edited by International Movement for a Just World president and social thinker Dr Chandra Muzaffar.

Azmi, an academic who taught law in Universiti Malaya for 18 years and served as executive committee member of Aliran for nearly 10 years, died of brain tumour at 43 in 1992.

Chandra described him as "an honest and upright human being, knowledgeable, intelligent, kind and compassionate".

"He pioneered human rights education in Malaysia and was the first to introduce humanitarian law in UM," he said in his opening address at the book launch ceremony attended by about 80 people, including friends and colleagues.

"He is undoubtedly the most multi-ethnic person I have met in Malaysian public life. There was not an ounce of communal thinking in him. He treated human beings as just that.

"The other reason why he is so dear to all of us is because he was a devout Muslim who did not wear the religion on his body but carried its values in his heart."

Rohana said she first met him while reading law in UM. "Four years later, he became my husband and my friend. Life with him was an adventure. He was a caring and devoted husband and father to our two children, Nor Alina and Muhammad Rizal."

Arbitrary discretion

"We, his family, are deeply honoured and touched by the book tribute and for the generous funding for the book project sourced from family and friends," she added.

Azmi's children also gave a musical presentation with some friends, rendering songs like "Tears in Heaven" and "Change The World", as well as a guitar duet entitled "Nothing Else Matters".

Prominent human rights lawyer Raja Aziz Addruse, who launched the book, quoted excerpts showing Azmi's grave concern over the executive's naive misapprehension and deliberate distortion of the basic constitutional principles and legal doctrines.

"To him, as it is to lawyers and others who believe in the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law, the checks and balances were prerequisites to a democratic society," he said in his speech preceding the book launch.

The virtual removal of the checks and balances through frequent amendments and oppressive laws passed by Parliament for political expediency which gave the Executive unfettered and arbitrary powers, he said, was not seen by the latter as an infringement of the rule of law.

"The distinction between rule of law and rule by law which, as a constitutional lawyer, Azmi was very conscious of, was totally lost upon the Executive and their advisers."

Raja Aziz said Azmi's despair and dismay could be sensed in the book under Articles.

Two dark events

In her biographical note in the book, Rohana referred to two dark events in Azmi's life Ops Lalang of 1987 where he had been involved in the habeas corpus applications made to the Kuala Lumpur High Court to secure the release of Chandra and seven other detainees.

Raja Aziz said one of the arguments in the writ was the unacceptable condition of the place of detention.

"The (then) Attorney-General's (Abu Talib Othman) reply shocked everyone in court... the detainees, he said, should not expect to be accommodated in a single room in a five-star hotel."

He said the callous dismissal of the plight of the detainees and their fundamental liberties was repeated by the judge in his judgment on the case.

"Not being used to deal directly with a judiciary which was openly adopting a pro-establishment stance, the shock must have affected Azmi more than it did the other lawyers who had appeared for the applicants," he added.

The second dark event was the dismissal of the then Lord President Mohd Salleh Abas in 1988 and the suspension of five other Supreme Court judges, two of whom were subsequently dismissed.

"But these setbacks did not deter Azmi from continuing to advocate the cause of fundamental liberties and human rights...his criticism was always measured and supported by constitutional and legal principles."

A quiet fire

Raja Aziz said one of Azmi's activist colleagues had described him as "a quiet fire". "Chest-beating and sloganeering was not his style."

The late Azmi had also been part of the group of students at the London School of Economics who had lobbied through the Malaysian media for the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council, a decision which one of his contemporaries, Mohamad Ariff Yusof, admitted some regretted later.

Raja Aziz said the abolition would have happened sooner or later given the gradual reduction of appeal cases to the Privy Council due to the soundness of Federal Court decisions at that time.

An immediate past president of National Human Rights Society's (Hakam), Raja Aziz also said related how Azmi had single-handedly drafted the society's constitution.