Bulldozing new anti-terror law through Parliament will backfire, PKR MP warns
(Malay Mail Online) – Putrajaya will see its proposed anti-terror law roundly rejected if it attempts to rush it through Parliament, PKR MP Nurul Izzah Anwar warned today.
Citing alleged abuses in the past of anti-terrorism laws, Nurul Izzah said the federal government should instead table the Prevention of Terrorism Bill 2015 (POTA) and six other related legislation to a bipartisan parliamentary select committee on terrorism to find the best solution to tackle terrorism.
“Else POTA and whatever else attached to it will only be seen as mere mechanisms to continue persecution against the opposition.
“The bulldozing of POTA will be cause for rejection from all quarters; the Bar Council, the Global Movement of Moderates Foundation and now, Pakatan Rakyat,” the PKR vice-president said in a statement today.
The current session of Parliament, which ends this Thursday, is expected to vote on the Bill.
Nurul Izzah accused the Umno-led federal government of misusing the now-abolished Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) in the past to detain “thousands of opposition politicians, social activists, and other members of civil society” without trial.
“The power of the Minister, and by extension the Executive arm of government, to arbitrarily detain individuals without trial was a major source of abuse of the ISA,” she said.
The Lembah Pantai MP expressed concern that the POTA could be open to similar abuse, saying that the courts should be allowed to have powers of check and balance instead of leaving it to the proposed Prevention of Terrorism Board.
“The Home Minister has claimed that POTA will not repeat ISA since the authority to detain lies with an Advisory Board. However, Advisory Board membership and powers would still fall under the Executive, similar to the Minister’s discretion under ISA.
“If such powers of check and balance are to be accorded in any law, then they must lie with the judiciary,” she said.
Tabled in Parliament last Monday, Putrajaya’s proposed new law will allow authorities to detain suspected terrorists without bringing them to court for up to two years, with a Prevention of Terrorism Board (POTB) empowered to renew the detention order for an indeterminate amount of time.
Judicial reviews of such sentences are not permitted, according to the Bill, except for questions on its compliance with procedural matters.
Nurul Izzah also said “the right to a fair trial must be defended as a sacred part of our country’s legal process”, saying that Malaysia must set a higher example when dealing with actual or potential terrorists.
“We cannot throw out the rule of law when dealing with those who seek to break the law. This would precipitate the breakdown of order and worsen the already weakened legal institutions of Malaysia,” she said.
“Long periods of detention without trial of suspected terrorists, point to intelligence failures by the authorities. If an individual needs to be detained in such a manner while investigations proceed (or not), it implies that prior intelligence gathering efforts have been inadequate,” she added.
