EAIC 'doomed to fail' for lack of enforcement powers

The Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) is doomed to fail even in principle for lack of enforcement powers, according to Bar Council Human Rights Committee co-chairperson Roger Chan.

He said although the EAIC had some powers similar to the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) such as calling witnesses and searching premises but enforcement powers are conspicuous by their absence.

"This is the main differentiating principle between the IPCMC and the EAIC," said Chan (right) last night at a public forum on state violence.

Making this worse, he said, is Section 30 of the EAIC Act that turns the commission into other enforcement bodies' "replicating mechanism".

He was making a pointed reference to a provision in the Act that says if the EAIC has detected wrongdoing, it shall refer the matter to an appropriate disciplinary body for further action if it is misconduct, or the public prosecutor if found to be a criminal offence.

In practice, Chan said EAIC has performed even worse, noting that it has only one investigating officer to oversee 19 enforcement agencies, including the Civil Aviation Department, National Registration Department, Immigration Department, and the police.

Police brutality crying out for IPCMC

He argued that the IPCMC would have performed better in principle, because it is accorded enforcement powers and is accountable to the parliament.

The IPCMC was first mooted by a Royal Commission of Inquiry on the police force in 2005, but the EAIC was introduced instead as a watered-down version of the former ,bowing to opposition from the police.

The idea pops up every time there are allegations of police brutality or death in custody and the ongoing discourse was triggered by the murder of N Dhamendran on May 21, described by lawyer N Surendran as the was the worst death in custody case he had encountered.

Three more have since died in custody inthe following period of just over two weeks, fueling more cries for the IPCMC.

Surendran, who was also a panelist at the forum, slammed the EAIC for its silence over past instances of deaths in custody until Dhamendran's death.

"After Dhamendran's case, when there was public pressure, suddenly they spoke up. When they spoke up, people were going, ‘Huh? Who? E-A... E-A... E-A-what? What's that?'

"Nobody has heard of them, which is the biggest indictment Nobody knows that these jokers exist," he said.

'Set up dedicated Coroner's Court'

Other panelists at the forum at the Bar Council headquarters were student activist Adam Adli Abdul Hamid and Stop State Violence coalition steering committee member Irene Fernandez.

In addition, the participants held a brief candlelight vigil outside the venue calling for an independent inquiry into the murder of the Tapah PKR parliamentary candidate's aide K Murugan at 8pm, just before the forum kicked off.

At the forum, Surendran (right) also urged that a permanent and dedicated Coroner's Court be set up to complement the IPCMC, noting that England has had such an arrangement since ‘medieval times'.

He said under the current system, magistrate's courts are converted to coroner’s courts as the need arises but they also have other cases to deal with.

This means years would go by before an inquest can be held to determine the cause of death.

He added that coroners would have specific training to determine causes of death with wide powers to conduct their own investigations.

“(It is) unlike a magistrate sitting in a court who can only decide based on the evidence brought by the police, or the DPP if it is an inquest.

“Who supplies the evidence? The police. Who is the culprit that we are suspecting? The police. So what evidence do you think they are going to bring?

“They will bring a lot of stuff - thick reams of documents - but they will never bring the smoking gun,” he said.

In the end after three to four years of hearings, he said, the court would deliver an open verdict, or rule that the victim had died of ‘misadventure’ or ‘accident’, despite the deceased  bearing  “marks all over the body”.

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