tommy thomas

lawyer, constitutionalist and author.

Abuse of Power-Free Sample Chapter

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Abuse of Power: Selected Works on the Law and Constitution. By Tommy Thomas. Free Sample Chapter. Petaling Jaya, Malaysia: SIRD, 2016. E-ISBN: ​978-967-0960-28-9.
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Tommy Thomas was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1952, and attended Pasar Road English School and Victoria Institution. He read law at the University of Manchester, graduating in 1973, and became a barrister (Middle Temple) in 1974. He studied International Relations at the London School of Economics, securing an M.Sc. in 1975.
He was called to the Malaysian Bar in 1976. He has been in active and continuous practice since call. He started his career at Skrine & Co., becoming a partner in 1982. In 2000, he established a small firm, doing litigation matters exclusively, organised along the lines of a barrister’s chambers in England.
Thomas served in the Bar Council from 1984 to 1988 and from 1993 to 2001. He was elected its Secretary, serving from 1995 to 1997. He was Editor of Insaf, the Bar’s publication from 1985 to 1987. He was a member of the Bar (Disciplinary Proceedings) Review Committee under the Chairmanship of Tun Hussein Onn, and wrote its Report in 1986.
Thomas has a keen interest in corporate governance. He was a Director of the Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance from 1995 to 2001. In the wake of the financial and economic crisis that engulfed Malaysia and other Asian countries in 1997, the United Nations Development Plan (UNDP) appointed him as Senior Consultant in 2000 to lead the Corporate Governance Initiative for the countries affected by the crisis. The publication in 2002 of a UNDP Report edited by him identified profligate corporate debt as a principal cause for the crisis.
He is a life member of the Malaysian Economic Association and the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.
“Many Malaysian writers pull their punches or shade the truth about life in Malaysia. Just as many commentators eschew research to back up their opinions….Prominent lawyer and social commentator Tommy Thomas does not fall into either category….The book is a compilation of 32 essays and commentaries over the years, written with courage and clarity. There is his take on polarized and fractured Malaysia; a compassionate portrait of communist leader Chin Peng and the unconstitutional basis of Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s declaration that Malaysia is an Islamic state…” - Brendan Pereira, Former Editor of The New Straits Times"
"“Tommy Thomas is undoubtedly one of the country’s foremost lawyers and thinkers as attested to by his brilliant legal career and by the breadth and depth of his writings and speeches not only on law but also on nation & institutional building as well as on financial liberalization and globalization, as is readily evident from this collection.

His forays into the political economy issues of the day such as the global financial crisis show how wide is his interest, how well he is read and what a good grasp he has of subjects very different from his field of specialization.

This collection is a must read not only for the specialists in law and the social sciences who have an abiding interest in developments in Malaysia and the Region but also for the concerned citizen who wants a better appreciation of the happenings around them.” - Dr R. Thillainathan, Past President of the Malaysian Economic Association.