A newspaper of April 15 carried a statement of Dr Rais Yatim, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, that the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) should let the police carry out their duty before airing its views.

According to The Sun, Rais said the police, in relation to the recent detention of reformasi activists, were allowed a certain latitude under Section 73(1) of the Internal Security Act (ISA).

"The seven arrests concern security and public order," Rais said when asked to comment on Suhakam's call for the detainees to be released immediately or charged in court.

Rais had added the arrests were allowed under Article 151 of the Constitution and were in accordance with the law concerning internal security.

Most shocking

At best Rais's statement is most shocking, and at its worst, it is tragic. Shocking because Rais, although a minister in the prime minister's department, albeit a relatively junior post, but nonetheless a senior politician and lawyer - with a doctorate in law no less - seems to be ignorant of the Human Rights Commission Act 1999.

This piece of the legislation (Act 597) was passed in parliament, and received the Royal Assent on Aug 27, 1999. It was published in the Gazette on Sept 9, 1999.

Are we to understand that Rais did not know about the existence of such a law? Or that, if he did, was he ignorant of section 4 of the Act, in regard to the 'Function and powers of the Commission'?

Section 4(2) of the Act stipulates that: " For the purpose of discharging its functions, the commission may exercise any or all of its powers. Under sub-section 4(2), the Commission has the power, indeed the duty, to advise the Government and/or the relevant authorities of complaints against such authorities and recommend to the Government or such authorities appropriate measures to be taken ..."

Sub-section (e) of the same Section 4 (2) states very clearly that the commission has the power 'to issue public statements on human rights as and when necessary ..."

So, in what way has Suhakam acted inappropriately? Where under the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia Act 1999 does it say that Suhakam cannot or should not air its views while the police are carrying out their duty or investigations?

Fragile conscience

The police may have a certain latitude under Section 73(1) of the ISA, but that does not make the ISA in general and its Section 73(1) in particular, any more moral or just.

Under which law in Malaysia is Suhakam, or for that matter, any Malaysian, prohibited from commenting or criticising arrests purportedly related to security and public order?

Is the conscience behind such arbitrary arrests so weak and fragile that it cannot and must not stand the glare of publicity and scrutiny?

Rais is, of course, entitled to his opinion that those ISA arrests were legitimate; after all, if he wants continue as a minister, he has hardly any choice but to toe the government's line.

But, surely, that doesn't mean that Suhakam has to think exactly like Rais and the government. After all, there are already enough robots in our country. Thus, the question of Suhakam acting in a prejudicial or partial manner does not arise at all.

Again, Rais is fully entitled to his opinion or conclusion that the ISA arrests were not human rights abuses. But then again, that doesn't mean that others, including Suhakam, must follow his highly political and jaundiced view.

Suhakam has shown that it understands the process and the law. It is Rais, most disappointingly, who has failed to understand the elementary provisions of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia Act 1999.

Rais should realise that no one is saying that article 151 of the Constitution does not allow those ISA arrests. Of course it does. But that does not necessarily make Article151 morally justified.

Executive tyranny

Laws and constitutional provisions which are unjust are morally unsustainable. Rais' statement is tragic in at least one sense. In 1995 he published his well-researched book Freedom under Executive Power in Malaysia.

He, quite rightly, dedicated the book 'to all who have suffered from the tyranny of executive abuses'.

In the conclusion to a lengthy chapter on 'Detention Without Trial Under The ISA" (Chapter 5, pages 187-304), Rais states: "The executive has been fully equipped and free to allege, prosecute and incarcerate at will persons ministerially deemed to be 'prejudicial to public order or the security of the Federation', a constitutional catch-phrase that has cast a very wide net so as to include political thoughts and activities that may be unsuited to the thinking of the power elite in government."

Further on, Dr Rais warned:"An executive not having to worry about judicial scrutiny over its actions in an Act of Parliament such as the ISA will almost certainly, at least at some stage in the future, want to replace the rule of law completely. In the case of Malaysia, this tendency is only a matter of time and the courts may not be an effective barricade to such an eventuality."

Indeed! Indeed! However, what a tragedy that the same Dr Rais, who in 1995 was a leader of the opposition Semangat 46 party, has since 1996 rejoined Umno.

Rais is, of course, entitled to his fundamental human right of political somersaulting from the opposition to the ruling party.

How pathetic and what a pity, though, that he did not publicly advise the Malaysian people whether his view on the ISA as contained in his book have also somersaulted.

Part and parcel

And how sad indeed that Dr Rais has deserted 'all those who have suffered from the tyranny of executive excesses' and become part and parcel of that very tyranny itself, often strutting about the stage as 'His Master's Voice' for Mahathir.

Our prime minister who scolds Malaysians for being 'ungrateful' and who now seems to suffer from the delusion that he is as misunderstood as the legendary TE Lawrence, the so called 'Lawrence of Arabia', who was so much glorified by Hollywood many years ago.

Who knows, our very own Follywood might one day immortalise Mahathir with a full length feature film perhaps to be called 'Mahathir of Dystopia'. I won't be surprised if Rais was to be chosen as the director of such an epic.

The Oscars, oh, the Oscars! Just imagine ...

FAN YEW TENG is a former member of Parliament and a former consultant to the United Nations. An author and lecturer, he is retired from active politics and is currently nearing completion of another book.