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The over zealous acts of the City Hall of Ipoh authority resulted in the suspension of the Parks (Ipoh Municipal Council) By-Laws by the Menteri Besar of Perak?
Press Statement by M Kula Segaran (Petaling Jaya, Thursday): The DAP welcomes the decision of the State Executive Council of Perak for having taken a decision to suspend the operations of the Parks (Ipoh Municipal Council) By-Laws 1985 with immediate effect. The Menteri Besar in announcing the above decision also mentioned that those who have been issued the summons have actually committed the offence of “indecent behaviour”. He has decided to believe the version of the enforcement officers without even hearing the versions of the victims. On 27thMay03 during a media conference at the DAP office we made available 2 victims of the byelaws to the media. One victim was Lai Kar Leong while holding hands with his girl friend was issued a summons for being in Ipoh Padang at 10.30 pm. The other victim was one Ramesh was issued a summons while he was talking to a girl in the Ipoh Tun Abdul Razak library. Library is not a park within the meaning of the byelaw! We have here today one Sukdave Singh who was also issued a summons under the above byelaw while he was walking with his girlfriend at the Polo grounds, Ipoh on 17/11/02 at 4.46pm. Polo Ground is a very popular jogging and recreational area where many Ipoh folks go in the evening. In fact many family functions are held at this place. The City Hall officers have decided that holding hand in public with the opposite gender is an offence within the meaning of the byelaw. When Sukdave went to complain to the City office on the wrong issuance of this summons the City hall reduced the compound to be paid from RM100 to RM70. To date Suhdave has not paid the compound and he has decided to fight it out in court. In all the above cases the DAP will provide legal assistance and represent them in court. We urge the Menteri Besar to order the DBI to cancel all the summons issued to date. In the last few months the enforcements officers of the DBI under the above bye-laws have issued more then 170 summons for the year 2003. The enforcement officer has a lot of discretion under the bye-laws to issue summons. The bye-laws rules states as follows: 8(1) Any person found in behaving in disorderly manner in any park commits an offence.
(2) Any person committing any act in contravention of any of the provisions of these bye-laws may be ordered out of any park by the President or any officer authorized in writing by him or a police officer and may be refused admission subsequently
(3)Any person refusing to obey such order under Paragraph(2) may, with reasonable force be removed from such park.
The question is why the city hall has not given liberal and commonsense interpretation to the byelaws. In fact the simplest way would have been by ordering such person to leave the park for “disorderly behaviour” or as a last resort to remove such persons from the park instead of issuing a summons. Why was that option not used but carelessly summons was issued on the victims? This clearly shows that the city hall enforcement officers are not adequately trained and do not understand the provisions of the byelaws. Their actions have been overzealous, acting without commonsense and failed to exercise reasonable restraint in executing their duties. The City Hall and the Menteri Besar have read words into the byelaws. They said now the meaning of “disorderly behaviour” equals to “indecent behaviour”. This subjective interpretation by the people in power is why the Ipoh folks are objection to the byelaws.
The Mayor had said that he want to keep the City Morally clean. The DAP demands that he should not impose his subjective values and opinions on the city folks. Holding hands or been seen in company of a woman is definitely not immoral or indecent behaviour. The mayor should not become the moral custodian of the people of Ipoh. He could impose strict moral values like not holding hands in public in his personal affairs and leave we Ipoh folks alone!
The primary duty of the Mayor is to keep the city clean and to abide with the laws and regulations. He should not usurp powers to discharge his duties. Although these moral issues are such an important matter, at the last Friday council meeting none of the city councillors or the Mayor deem it fit to discuss the issue openly. The sensitiveness to the majority of the Ipoh folks of the moral issue must be properly addressed The DAP calls that the matter be discussed with the various religious council and NGOS’ and the City Hall should be transparent in this matter and the finding of opinion be made public. (5/6/2003) * M.Kulasegaran Deputy Secretary-General DAP Malaysia and Perak DAP Secretary |