New ISA law: An ogre supplanted by an octopus



If a Internal Security Act 1960 was an ogre which destroyed most lives, a brand brand brand brand new Security Offences (Special Measures) Bill 2012 is an octopus in whose tentacles Prime Minister Najib Razak's promised liberalisation suffers serve smothering.

Last year's Public Assembly Bill 2011 was ostensible to have kicked off Najib's liberalisation drive, touted in his Malaysia Day residence of Sept 15.

What it did was merely to digest a time support for demonstrators to acquire military permits to stage protests.

NONEIt hadn't occurred to a powers-that-be which liberalisation equates to not carrying during all to acquire military permission to demonstrate.

Now we have an additional example of cognitive dissonance: a brand brand brand brand new Security Offences Bill is ostensible to be a substantive alleviation over a predecessor, a ISA.

Actually, a check attests a truth of a observant which looks can deceive. It's like seeing something by moonlight which can exhibit a outline of a thing but not a true nature.

A tighten celebration of a mass of a proposed brand brand brand brand new law's provisions would establish which in a details, it c! ould enm esh a detainee in prolonged periods of incarceration.

If apprehension but hearing had rendered a Internal Security Act 1960 an abomination, continued apprehension after a justice systematic release, which is a provision in a brand brand brand brand new law, would make a caricature of claims which a latter legislation is an alleviation upon a former.

NONENajib, in tabling a Security Offences Bill, blithely claimed a proposed brand! brand b rand brand new law is an alleviation over a ISA since a grounds as well as equates to of an detain underneath it have been theme to legal review.

"They [detainees] have been giveaway to record for writ of habeas corpus upon a reason as well as equates to of their arrest,"he toldthe Dewan Rakyat yesterday.

"In short, a energy of legal examination has been returned to a courts, unlike in a ISA where habeas corpus is usually applicable to a equates to of arrest," Najib expatiated.

Detention after acquittal

What a PM didn't discuss is which there is a provision in a Security O! ffences Bill for continued apprehension by a police, if a latter hold fit, of a authority liberated by a courts.

True, a brand brand brand brand new check provides for legal oversight of senior manager fiat - a detainee can plea his apprehension in court.

This seeming editing over a ISA is negated by a brand brand brand brand new law's permission for a senior manager to continue land a detainee until a appeal routine is disposed.

The alleviation of legal oversight is cancelled by a latitude since a senior manager to reassert a primacy.

Countervailing powers have been a hint of constitutional government. In permitting for a senior manager to hold a liberated detainee until a appeal routine is completed, a change of energy is slanted in foster of a executive.

Theoretically, this indefinite apprehension renders nugatory all a improvements to a duration - a brand brand brand brand new law boundary it to 28 days compared to a ISA's provision of 60 days - of a primary duration of apprehension of a authority by a police.

azlanDetention after exculpation is marginally, not substantively improved than apprehension but hearing - a f!! eature o f a ISA which had rendered it odious.

This provision for apprehension after exculpation is a tripwire which prevents a Security Offences Bill from being what a supervision asserts it is: a vast alleviation over a prototype as well as a single which strikes an optimal change in between a demands of particular autocracy as well as a confidence concerns of a state.

The border a hype about a brand brand brand brand new law masks a harsh reality is serve inferred from a provision which allows military to intercept communications but legal permit when questioning a detainee for a suspected confidence offence.

The Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) has voiced a demurral over this proviso which it says can "infringe personal autocracy as well as a right to privacy."

"The provisions in a Bill as well as a amendments to a alternative applicable laws must set upon a change in between inhabitant confidence as well as fundamental liberties as well as human rights," Suhakam authority Hasmy Agam pronounced in a statement yesterday.

Thus opposition MPs were not a usually ones to drive with a supervision which a Security Offences Bill does small to allege a cause of domestic liberalisation in Malaysia.

Suhakam as well as a Bar Council, which had earlier criticised aspects of a Bill, feel likewise.
It appears a Malaysian open has not seen a final ruins of a dreaded ISA.

TERENCE NETTO has been a publisher for tighten upon four decades. He likes a function since it puts him in hit with a eminent but being underneath a necessity to admire them. It is a ideal function for a spirit which finds energy fascinating as well as a exercise abhorrent.
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