Rethinking Judicial Legitimacy: A Process-Based Perspective from Malaysian Corruption Trials

This article examines how judicial legitimacy in adversarial systems is fundamentally shaped by institutional constraints by arguing that courts inherit legitimacy deficits from investigative, prosecutorial, and post-judicial actors. Rather than viewing legitimacy as court-generated, I introduce the concept of “legitimacy transfer” to explain how deficits at one institutional stage structurally constrain courts’ capacity to generate public trust through their own actions alone. Using Malaysia’s corruption cases as a critical case study, it demonstrates how judicial legitimacy is fundamentally shaped by entire legal process from initial investigations through prosecutorial decisions to post-judicial mechanisms. The analysis reveals how investigative thoroughness, prosecutorial independence, and post-judicial mechanisms like royal pardons or executive clemency might significantly impact public trust in judicial outcomes. This reconceptualization suggests that in adversarial systems, strengthening judicial legitimacy requires a holistic approach addressing the entire legal process rather than focusing only on the court.