5th year memorial for Teoh Beng Hock

I spoke at the memorial for Teoh Beng Hock at KLSCAH last night.

After 5 years, no concrete efforts are yet seen by the government to wipe out custodial deaths and or assaults in Malaysia.

I proposed a few measures which I think may help. They are, amongst others, as follows;

1. Implementation of IPCMC;
2. Enacting legislation which makes the police (eg IGP, OCPD of district where incident occured and or Investigating Officers) or agency (eg MACC) responsible for the suspect strictly liable for assaults and or deaths in custody. This reverses the burden on to them to displace liability.

We may even need to consider making recklessness or negligence in cases of this nature a criminal offence.

3. Enacting laws which ensure families have access to information from police in cases like these such as CCTV recordings, particulars of all witnesses including other detainees present at the time, all reports lodged and diaries relevant to the case etc;
4. Amending laws to offer mandatory access of victims or families of victims to medical facilities, including rights to second postmortems;
5. Legal assistance to victims and the families.
6. Regular updates by the government to the families so that families are appraised of latest developments at all times;
7. Setting up of Special Coroners Courts with coroners who are specialists themselves and or have direct access to independent experts to help them in deliberations.

There must be independence especially from the police as most of the time the police or enforcement officers involved are suspects themselves;

8. Making the legal process less technical and more efficient for victims of abuse or families of the deceased in such cases, for example giving them direct access to court for orders which could assist even at the early stages of investigations.
9. Setting up of a forensic institute for such purposes with experts (including medical and forensic) and pathologists who are independent of government;
10. Reassessing the impact of RCI’s

(eg VK Lingam, IPCMC, Teoh Beng Hock
RCI’s made recommendations many of which have not yet been acted upon or implemented);

Many ask if we will ever find justice for Teoh Beng Hock.

I say we can only keep hoping that some day we find justice for Teoh Beng Hock and that those responsible for his death are brought to book.

The fight must go on and we Malaysians must recognize that this fight extends beyond. It is an exercise necessary so as to expose weaknesses in the system as it exists and the changes which we must be serious about if we ever hope to put an end to custodial assault and deaths cases here in Malaysia.