Back to square one, and worse

QUESTION TIME All of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s legal reforms to free and empower people have now been moved back to the first square - and worse - with the proposed new amendments to the Prevention of Crimes Act (PCA) now before Parliament.

The demands of the police have been met in full and the power has been put back in their hands to detain whoever they want at anytime they want for whatever period they want. The checks and balances will be vested with a three-person panel with no judicial review whatsoever.

We are well and truly back fully into the dark ages and the government is back in control with full powers to do anything to anyone with no check and balance but the mostly toothless court of public opinion which counts for anything only when the next polls are round the corner.

The hardliners in Umno and the police have won hands down because this vile piece of legislation masquerading as an attempt to fight crime is certain to be passed by a simple majority of Barisan Nasional members in Parliament. This is despite opposition to the legislation by BN component parties such as MCA and Gerakan.

The legislation is being pushed through with unholy haste with no consultation with the public, not even the Bar Council, as with other controversial pieces of legislation.

The magnitude of the implications of the amended PCA are enormous. It essentially brings back the provisions of both the infamous Internal Security Act (ISA) and Emergency Ordinance.

It is insidious because it perpetuates all emergency powers that a government has through the police without there being any state of emergency in the country during a time of peace and stability on the unsupported excuse that it is necessary to control crime. We will be in a constant state of emergency without there being any emergency declared!

It removes all rights a person has to defend himself in court against any accusation that is made against him, so long as the police feel that the person must be locked up. The initial two-year detention period can be indefinitely renewed. It is probably against the constitution, too.

This article says that “it is the most serious assault on human rights”, and I agree explains some of the key aspects of the amendments.

There are many things which can be construed as against the law. There are sedition laws, laws against illegal assembly, criminal defamation laws - any of these can be used to curb legitimate political dissent. And in this country, all of them have been in the past.

With the amendments, politicians, dissenters, activists, dog-lovers - anyone - can be indiscriminately and indefinitely detained to “prevent” all manner of so-called crimes.

Blind support

Despite the fact that the amendments are clearly draconian and concentrate way too much power in the hands of the police - the government department with the lowest level of public confidence according to surveys - there are those who blindly support the amendments as shown by this news report and this one.

The Star, which had carried a series of articles on the rise of crime, reported on Sept 23 that the recent Operation Cantas by the police to nab gangsters  was a major success. Here are excerpts of the report:

“There has been a more than 90 percent drop in robbery with firearms in the country since Ops Cantas Khas was launched, say police.

“According to Bukit Aman’s principal assistant director of the Secret Societies, Vice and Gambling Division (D7) Senior Asst Comm Datuk Abdul Jalil Hassan, there has been a decrease in crime across the board since the launch of the operations on Aug 17.

“In the last 36 days (from Aug 17 to Sept 22), serious crime has gone down by 12.48 percent with murder cases lowered by 33.78 percent, gang robbery decreased by 23.58 percent and robbery dipped by 26 percent compared to the similar number of days between July 12 and Aug 16.”

If indeed this is true, one must say “very well done” to the police. They have performed impressively indeed. And they did it without preventive detention laws. It clearly and unambiguously shows that preventive detention laws are not vital to fighting crime. Question is why did they not do this earlier?

In the face of evidence from the police that they have done so well even after the Emergency Ordinance and the ISA were repealed, is there any real need to introduce the legislation now? Isn’t the reduction of crime directly proportional to the amount of police effort put in?

And wouldn’t crime reduce further, much further, if corruption within the force is reduced to practically nothing? And if we give police all that is reasonable to fight crime such as good training, adequate equipment, great leaders, qualified recruits and sufficient salaries won’t that help?

In many instances of fighting crime, the first step has been a clean-up of those who purport to be fighting crime. This has happened first in many countries around the world. A corrupt force cannot fight crime effectively. Where is the effort to clean our cops up first? Where are the checks and balances against the police?

Gov’t misled the people?

This move by the government is without doubt terribly retrograde and begs the question of whether the government deliberately misled the people that it was moving towards liberalising oppressive and restrictive laws in the wake of the last general election, only to roll it all back post-elections.

It is something that all right-thinking citizens will oppose and goes against the grain of common sense, logic, decency and plain human rights. It’s constitutionality should be challenged in the courts and one hopes the judiciary will be up to coming up with a fair decision.

At the end of the day that may be the only hope of thwarting this travesty against justice for BN no longer commands a two-thirds majority in Parliament which is required to change the constitution.

Najib’s predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi lost the two-thirds majority for BN in Parliament in the 2008 elections after he broke promises he made, promises that led to BN’s greatest election victory ever in the 2004 polls.

Keep going this way and it will be no surprise if BN loses their simple majority next time round to eventually make public opinion count.

P GUNASEGARAM is the founding editor of KiniBiz.