POLICE COMMISSION TREADS OLD GROUND

All I could do was to smile when I read the Malaysiakini report(17/5/2004) which reported the “The police commission wants a review to ensure that remand orders are only given in cases where there is sufficient evidence.”

Surely there are so many new areas that need to be addressed, for after all the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (SUHAKAM) had more than 2 years ago come out with a comprehensive report  that dealt with  remand procedures, which made very good recommendations. To date our Malaysian government has done little (or literally nothing about) about this Rights of Remand Prisoners Report’ dated December 2001.

But alas the Judiciary did respond, in early 2003, our present chairperson of the Police Commission, in his last days as Chief Justice introduced guidelines on the conduct of remand proceedings. There were flaws in these Practice Directions. A detainee’s access to a lawyer during these remand proceedings could be denied if the police was able to show that the access to a lawyer would interfere with police investigations. The Practice Directions also had another flaw, in that it seem to say that a person without a lawyer may end up being subjected to a ‘short’ remand order for him to get a lawyer, and this was wrong in law. "How can you be remanded on the basis that you need a lawyer?," Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari, the Chairperson of the Malaysian Bar asked in his statement, as reported in Malaysiakini(26/4/2003)

Khutubul also  urged the judiciary to consider incorporating the recommendation of the Human Rights Commission’s recommendation in 2001 that a detainees be given a right access to a lawyer as soon after his arrest.

And now in May 2004, the police commission is again talking about the remand procedures.

The government and the legislature did not heed SUHAKAM’s  report and recommendations then, and now, I wonder whether they would listen to the suggestions of the Police Commission now.

It is also sad that the Police Commission is not dealing with other more pressing concerns like death in custody and the deaths from police shoot-outs, rather than covering old ground, already covered by SUHAKAM. After all, in 2002, 237 persons died in custody in 2002, and 16 died in police custody. In 2003, 188 persons died in custody in 2003, and 7 died in police custody.  In April 1999, Parliament was informed that in the past 10 years, 635 people had been shot dead by the police. This was about 1.2 per week. Of late, it has been said that it is has gone up to 1.3 per week. There is a pressing need for public inquests to be immediately carried out in all these cases of deaths, not just the deaths in custody. Related to this is also the right for the family of the deceased to have the right to demand a second post-mortem, if they are dissatisfied with the initial government doctor’s post-mortem.

I also hope that the Government will stop considering recommendations but put into practice these recommendations of the Police Commission, and most definitely those of SUHAKAM.

The new parliament began sitting today, and maybe will at least spend some time discussing and debating the reports and recommendations of SUHAKAM – for after all to-date none of SUHAKAM’s annual reports and other recommendations have been considered by our legislature.

Charles Hector

18 May 2004, Petaling Jaya