Call on Hishammuddin and UMNO Youth to review and revoke opposition to IPCMC and to give full support to Abdullah in reform pledge and programme

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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliament, Friday): The public opposition of the Education Minister and UMNO Youth leader Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein to the key recommendation of the two  Royal Police Commission on the establishment of an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) is  now clear and unequivocal.

This follows the statement by the UMNO Youth Information Chief Azimi Daim published in Malaysiakini yesterday confirming that  UMNO Youth had its exco meeting on Monday chaired by Hishammuddin  rejected the IPCMC as existing mechanisms were sufficient in dealing with such issues.

Hishammuddin and UMNO Youth’s stand is most regrettable for at least four reasons:

• Deplorable and unworthy   insinuation that those who support the establishment of IPCMC have dishonourable and ignoble motives when this category includes not only NGOs and members of the public, but also Cabinet Ministers and MPs, who want a police service all Malaysians can be proud of;
   
• Casting aspersions on the integrity of the members of the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police, whose chairman was  former Chief Justice Tun   Mohammed Dzaiddin bin Haji Abdullah and deputy chairman the former Inspector-General of Police Tun Mohamed  Hanif Omar as the proposed IPCMC  was  the most important of its 125 recommendations to create a clean, accountable, efficient, professional world-class police service – a recommendation repeated in the second Royal Police Commission Report.
   
• Open challenge to the Prime Minister who had made repeated public commitments  to implement the Police Commission recommendation to set up the IPCMC,  the last time unequivocally on January 24 after the publication of the report of the second Royal Police Commission; and
   
• Disregard of the birthday address of the Yang di Pertuan Agong last June who not only commended the Royal Police Commission for its report, but wanted the Government to extend its effort to  improve the management of the police to all government agencies to speed up its initiatives to improve the delivery system of the civil service.

There is a question uppermost in Malaysian minds – Why  Hishammuddin is allowed to publicly challenge Abdullah  on the establishment of IPCMC when a recent memorandum  to the Prime Minister  by nine Ministers was denounced as subversion of the Cabinet principle of collective responsibility as well as threat and challenge  to Prime Ministerial authority?

The trespass of one Cabinet Minister into the territory of another Cabinet member is also quite unprecedented – especially when the other Ministry is helmed by none other than the Prime Minister himself.  Would Hishammuddin take kindly to a public stand by another Cabinet member which is critical or even opposed to a position which he had taken as Education Minister?

Just as the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police had proposed the establishment of the IPCMC with the noblest of objectives  because it would have the most catalytic effect in restoring public confidence in the PDRM as a clean, efficient, accountable, professional world-class police service, similarly the bona fides of Malaysians  who support this key proposal of the  Royal Commission because they want to see a highly-respected police force both nationally and internationally  should not be doubted.

Malaysia will not be the first country to have an external oversight body for police misconduct, corruption and criminality as it  had been introduced in other countries like the United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong resulting in greater public confidence in the police force in the country concerned.

What basis is there for Hishammuddin and UMNO Youth to contend that unlike other countries, the establishment of an IPCMC would lead to a more demoralized and inefficient police force?

If such an argument holds water, then there should be more curbs on an already ineffective Anti-Corruption Agency, as anti-corruption campaigns in the public sector  would lead to a demoralized and inefficient civil service – a notion that is totally opposed to the spirit and philosophy of Abdullah’s  reform pledge and programme to head an administration which is clean, accountable, transparent, trustworthy, efficient and people-oriented.

Hishammuddin and UMNO Youth should review and revoke  their opposition to the IPCMC and instead give full support to Abdullah in his reform pledge and programme to implement the recommendations of the Royal Police Commission, in particular the establishment of the IPCMC.

(10/02/2006)