Important Note: This article is for general information and educational purposes only — not legal advice. It draws on the written judgment of High Court Judge Alice Loke, High Court of Malaya, Judicial Review Application No. WA‑25‑136‑04/2024, delivered on 22 December 2025, on reports of the Legal Affairs Division’s statement of 18 September 2026 by Malay Mail, The Star, and The Edge, and on the earlier Justiciable article on the December 2025 decision.
For illustration only
What Article 42 requires, and what the courts can still review
On 18 September 2026, the Legal Affairs Division of the Prime Minister’s Department announced that the King, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, had granted Datuk Seri Najib Razak a conditional pardon. Najib will serve the remainder of his SRC International sentence under house arrest until 23 August 2028, subject to payment of the RM50 million fine and compliance with all statutory conditions. Any breach automatically revokes the pardon and returns him to prison.
The decision came from the 64th meeting of the Pardons Board for the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Labuan, and Putrajaya. That detail matters. Almost nine months earlier, the High Court had dismissed Najib’s judicial review because the Board had never deliberated on his house arrest. The process the court said was required has now been followed.
Clemency is not for the courts to grant. But the process by which it is exercised is justiciable — and that is the line this case draws.
What a conditional pardon is
A pardon under Article 42 of the Federal Constitution may be free or conditional. A free pardon removes the legal consequences of the conviction. A conditional pardon does not. It releases the offender from part of the punishment, on terms.
In this case the terms are a specific sum — RM50 million — and a specific arrangement: house arrest rather than imprisonment, ending on a fixed date, 23 August 2028. The RM50 million is not a new figure. The SRC sentence was originally 12 years’ imprisonment and a RM210 million fine, reduced to six years and RM50 million in a 2024 pardon review.
The distinction matters because a conditional pardon can be revoked. It is not a final act of mercy but an arrangement that depends on the offender’s ongoing compliance.
Article 42 and the Pardons Board
Article 42 governs how the power of mercy is exercised. It is not a personal discretion the King may exercise alone. The Pardons Board must first meet, with the King presiding. At that meeting, the Board considers the written opinion of the Attorney-General and gives its advice. Only after that does the King decide.
The December 2025 judgment turned on this. The Addendum Order Najib had relied on was never discussed or voted on at the 61st Pardons Board meeting. Justice Alice Loke held that the Order therefore did not satisfy Article 42 and was invalid. The court did not rule that house arrest was unavailable to Najib. It ruled that the order he relied on had not been made through the proper process.
On 18 September 2026, the Board met. The King then acted. What the court had said was required has now been done.
Revocation
The news reports record that any breach of the conditions will automatically revoke the pardon, and the offender will be returned to prison immediately.
This is the mechanism that makes a conditional pardon enforceable. The word used in the reports is ‘automatically’, which suggests it does not require a fresh court order, a fresh Board meeting, or a fresh exercise of the royal discretion. The conditions are built into the pardon itself. If they are breached, the pardon falls away.
What the courts can still review
The pardon itself is not subject to review on its merits. A court cannot ask whether the King was right to grant it, or whether the conditions were too lenient or too severe.
But the process remains reviewable. If the Board had failed to meet, or had not considered the Attorney-General’s opinion, or if the King had acted without its advice, the resulting decision would have been vulnerable — as the December 2025 judgment demonstrated.
If revocation is disputed, the same distinction is likely to apply. Whether the authority that determined the breach followed the proper process is a question of law, and the December 2025 judgment shows the courts will review that.
What remains unresolved
The pardon covers the SRC International sentence only. According to The Star, Najib still faces a 15-year sentence and an RM11.38 billion fine imposed in December 2025 in the 1MDB case, which is on appeal. The Edge reports that the sentence is to run after the SRC term ends in August 2028, so the pardon does not shorten his overall time in custody if the 1MDB conviction is upheld. If the fine is not paid, The Star reports it could add up to 40 additional years in prison — imprisonment imposed in default of payment.
He also faces an RM2.08 billion asset recovery order, a USD1.3 billion civil judgment (about RM5.25 billion) in favour of SRC International, a tax bill of RM1.69 billion, and further charges, including six counts of criminal breach of trust involving RM6.6 billion and a money laundering case involving RM27 million.
A Closing Thought
What the case demonstrates is a distinction the courts have drawn consistently: the exercise of mercy is the King’s, but the framework within which it is exercised is the Constitution’s, and the courts will enforce that framework when it is invoked.
Najib sought house arrest in December 2025 by relying on an order made outside the process, and failed. He obtained it in September 2026 by following the process the court had described. The objective was the same. The route was different.
Whether the pardon was the right decision is not a question for the courts. Their concern is with the framework, and the framework was observed.