Press Statement by Karpal Singh in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, 27^th December 2009:

Referendum on ISA

I fully support the statement of National Union of Journalists Malaysia (NUJ) General Secretary, V. Anbalagan, that the government sets up a Parliamentary select committee to get more public feedback before the proposed amendments by the government to the Internal Security Act which are scheduled for being tabled and debated in the sitting of Parliament in March next year.

Rightly, the ISA should be abolished. It is legislation which is a rehash of the Emergency Regulations, 1948 which were introduced for the purpose of combating and overcoming the communist resurgence in the form of violence. The Emergency Regulations were a necessity to overcome the communist rebellion then.

The ISA has been in our statute books since 1960. The MCP has laid down its arms. The communist threat has been eliminated and consequently the need to perpetuate the ISA does not arise. However, the government is bent on prolonging the life of this legislation by way of the amendments proposed by it. The proposed amendments do not include the right to be tried in a court of law. The amendments are cosmetic.

There is no doubt that the need to combat contemporary terrorism requires measures which are meaningful. However, the basic right to be tried in a court of law before being condemned to captivity requires inclusion in the ISA. The government ought not to be afraid of affording a right to be heard to those detained under the ISA if it has good reason to do so. Only a judicial pronouncement can justify detention.

Of late, the Minister of Home Affairs has bypassed, unlike the position before, police investigations before ordering detention under the ISA under section 8(1) without the necessity of resorting to section 72 which requires a police investigation as a prerequisite to the issuance of a detention order. The Federal Court, in the case of the leaders of HINDRAF who were detained directly by the order of the then Minister of Home Affairs, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in December 2007, ruled that there was no necessity to resort to police investigations. The proposed amendments should ensure that there should be no direct detention by order of the Minister of Home Affairs.

In any event, the government should seriously consider giving the people a right to decide whether the ISA should be abolished by way of a referendum. This will be the proper process instead of the setting up of a Parliamentary select committee. The people’s views should be procured across the board in view of the opposition to the ISA nationally and also its condemnation internationally.

* Karpal Singh, DAP National Chairman & MP for Bukit Gelugor