ISA elements 'smuggled' into Penal Code

Bukit Bendera MP Liew Chin Tong is concerned that the amendments to the Penal Code, which were tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, are similar to what is already in the Internal Security Act (ISA).

Liew (left), who is from the DAP, said in a statement today that portions of the ISA have been 'smuggled into the Penal Code', for instance:

* The words “counsels violent disobedience to the law or any lawful order” in the new Section 124H of the Penal Code are hauntingly similar to the definition of “subversive document” in Section 29 (3)(b) of the ISA; and

* The mention of the terms “counselling disobedience to the law thereof or to any lawful order therein” are chillingly reminiscent of the definition of “terrorist” in Section 2 of the ISA.

“Public confidence in the government is shaken when oppressive laws are repealed with much fanfare only to be replaced with equally - if not more - abhorrent legislation that offends the spirit of legal reform,” Liew added.

The ISA is slated to be replaced with the Security Offences (Special Measures) Bill 2012 (SOSM), which was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.

Liew also highlighted other amendments made to the Penal Code, Evidence Act and Criminal Procedure Code, saying they “vest an unholy axis of power in government that will only lead to a ticking time bomb for all freedom-loving Malaysians”.

Offences 'filmsily defined'

He cited the new Section 124B of the Penal Code which creates an offence known as “activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy” punishable by 20 years’ imprisonment.

This offence is flimsily defined as “an activity carried out by a person or a group of persons designed to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by violent or unconstitutional means”.

Further, he said, under Section 124C, an attempt to commit an “activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy” is punishable by 15 years’ imprisonment.

He characterised the amendments as raising concerns over its abuse, when only an attempt at the crimes specified could be met with such heavy punishment.

Liew also raised the threat posed to freedom of information and the media by the amendments, citing the criminalisation of the printing, selling, possessing or importing of “documents and publications detrimental to parliamentary democracy”.

He criticised the definition of “sensitive information” which encompasses any document, information or material “whether or not it is classified as Top Secret, Secret, Confidential or Restricted”, as disturbing.

The vague definition and high penalty of up to 15 years’ imprisonment for printing makes the law open to abuse by the government, he said.

These amendments, Liew added, should be read together with Part IV of the new Security Offences (Special Measures) Bill 2012, which provides for in-camera hearing in a trial involving sensitive information.

Under Section 8(8) of this Bill, decisions of the court under these procedures are non-appealable.

“This would allow the government to keep sensitive information out of the public eye, not even accessible to the media,” he stressed, adding that the BN government has no intention of real change.

The government introduced these amendments to the Penal Code as a complement to the new Security Offences law it wants to implement, which will be one of two new laws to replace the ISA.

The other new law is yet to be revealed.