Ex-IGP: Court right to junk Chin Peng's suit

Former Inspector-General of Police Hanif Omar has lauded the High Court's decision to throw out communist leader Chin Peng's defamation suit against the Malaysian government.

"I think it is a sound decision," Hanif told reporters, on the sidelines of Senator Tunku Abdul Aziz's book Straight Talk in Kuala Lumpur today.

He said while Chin Peng chose not to dissolve the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), it is still considered an illegal organisation under Malaysian law, thus he had no locus standi to take up the suit.

Hanif (left), who spent a large part of his 20-year reign as IGP fighting communist insurgents, said it was not slanderous to say the CPM had killed many innocent people.

"He wants to sue for slander. They killed thousands of people in the most cruel way. What is so slanderous about that?" asked Hanif.

'Chin Peng has no excuse'

"The first time round, we fought them for 12 years. The second time, we fought them for 21 years. All the time, we were already independent. So what independence struggle were they struggling for?

"They were fighting an independent, democratically elected Malaysian government all those years after 1957. So what excuse do they have?" he asked.

Hanif said this when asked about speculations that Chin Peng may seek legal recourse at the International Court of Justice.

In 2005, Chin Peng (left) and several of his CPM members filed a suit against the Malaysian government seeking damages over defamatory remarks made by a minister, and to stop the Malaysian government or its agents from making defamatory remarks against them.

The suit was filed following media reports on March 21 and May 6, 2005 where then Deputy Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin announced that television programmes featuring "communist atrocities" would be aired.

Justice Balia Yusof Wahi threw out the suit today with cost, ruling that the suit was "unsustainable" because hostility between CPM and the government was a historical fact and undeniable.

Hanif was among the signatories on behalf of the Malaysian government in the 1989 Haadyai peace agreement for cessation of hostilities.

SCC must be effective

Meanwhile, Hanif also urged the authorities to ensure that the core components of the proposed Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission be accommodated into the Special Complaints Commission.

"What is important is that it must be equally effective, as envisioned for the IPCMC. The name is not important," said Hanif, who was the deputy chair of the 2004 Royal Police Commission which drafted the IPCMC as a means of reforming the police force.

The Special Complaints Commission bill is expected to be debated during the October sitting of Parliament. The bill has proposed that all enforcement bodies be made subject to the commission.

Commenting on this, Haniff said that having a single commission to oversee several agencies would detract the focus of the commission of monitoring the police force.

"You'll have too much on your plate, so to speak. My main concern is that all the provisions that would make IPCMC effective should be there," he said, who also remarked that the SCC is a "watered down" version of the IPCMC.