As DAP turns up the heat on Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi over his 47 corruption charges, amid increasingly strained ties between the two parties, Azalina Othman Said has delivered a pointed lesson in prosecutorial powers to fellow lawyer RSN Rayer.

The Umno information chief, herself a lawyer and minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform), reminded the DAP lawmaker that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is not the attorney-general and has no authority to decide who should be hauled back to court.

Urging the Jelutong MP to respect the attorney-general’s constitutional position and powers, Azalina (above) stressed that prosecutorial decisions must be guided by legal considerations, facts and evidence, rather than political pressure.