Letter confusion not a good stamp for Suhakam
Herein lies the problem, as at times, the commissioners come out with very conflicting statements that do not put the Commission in a good light.
A good case in point were the statements made following complaints by the pro-tem committee of the Parti Reformasi Insan Malaysia (Prim) on the racial clashes in Petaling Jaya Selatan in March.
Prim had submitted various memorandums to the Commission to look into the clashes which resulted in the death of six people and at least 52 injured. Sensing no immediate action from the Commission, the party then submitted various appeal letters requesting Suhakam to look into the matter.
To date, Prim has sent two memorandums and about nine letters to Suhakam asking the Commission to set up an inquiry into the racial clashes, which the party claims was racially and politically motivated
Prim also met with at least four different Suhakam commissioners, including two senior ones, on four occasions and each time the party was told that Suhakam was awaiting reports from various government agencies, particularly the National Unity and Social Development ministry, before it could act on Prim's memorandums.
Minister busy?
However last Monday, the National Unity and Social Development minister dropped a bombshell when she said that her ministry had not received any letter from Suhakam for reports on the racial clashes.
In response, a Suhakam senior commissioner admitted that what the minister said was true and that Suhakam had not sent any letters seeking any reports which indicated that Prim had been misled by the Commission.
However, a couple of hours later, another senior commissioner said a letter has already been sent to the ministry requesting for the report adding that the minister 'could have been busy and might not have been able to look at the letter'.
A third Suhakam commissioner, who had also met with Prim, also confirmed that a letter was sent to the ministry asking for the report of the Petaling Jaya Selatan racial clashes.
The issue here might just be over a letter but the question remains as to why were there conflicting statements on it from the two senior commissioners.
There could be several reasons for this.
One, miscommunication and secondly and more seriously, it could mean that one of the commissioners was not telling the truth. Nevertheless, the first reason at once seems more plausible.
This is because, from the day of its inception, Suhakam has been very stingy in issuing public statements on various incidents which it has been asked to investigate. Indeed, to date, it has only issued three official, public statements.
Transparency enhanced
The Commission lets its commissioners deal with the press and this, more often than not, creates problems as it results in individual commissioners giving their own individual views. These individual statements do not reflect the collective opinion of Suhakam.
The 1999 Human Rights Commission of Malaysia Act gives the Commission the power 'to issue public statements on human rights as and when necessary'.
At present, this power is under-utilised by the Commission. In order to avoid further and more serious credibility problems, Suhakam should exercise this power more freely and issue frequent public statements on matters it is investigating.
Such public statements will reflect the view and opinion of the entire Commission, thus eliminating the problems of different views by individual commissioners.
Suhakam should, in fact, must, also issue public statements to inform the public as to its reasons for not launching an investigation into a particular complaint. This will help enforce the public's belief in the Commission's transparency.
Admittedly, Suhakam will not be able to issue statements on all the complaints it receives, which now runs into thousands, but the Commission should exercise its discretion on the more pressing incidents.
