I call upon the Attorney General Tan Sri Gani Patail to state if he now supports the proposed amendments to the Prevention of Crime Act 1959, which seeks to reintroduce preventive detention.
The proposed amendments seek to introduce powers to detain persons for periods not exceeding 2 years at a time and it also excludes such detentions from judicial review except with regards to procedural matters, which is the same provisions in the Internal Security Act and Emergency Ordinance which were criticised and therefore abolished.
It is strange that the AG’s chambers have drafted and presented to Parliament a bill which contains matters which the AG himself has criticised and openly said he opposed.
In August 2013, Tan Sri Gani is reported to have said at a forum in Petaling Jaya that “Preventive laws are an abuse to human rights and personal liberty as enshrined in our Federal Constitution and that this guarantee must be safeguarded at all costs.” He also made hard hitting remarks about preventive detention laws claiming it had actually failed to check the rise in violent crimes in the country and that the police were “addicted to it”.
So how can the AG’s office now draft a bill which seeks to do exactly what it is the AG said was an affront to the Federal Constitution, which had miserably failed to help reduce escalating crime rates in the country and had so severely condemned himself?
This certainly does not reflect well on the AG and raises questions as to whether his views are respected in his own chambers.
The Attorney General, apart from being the Public Prosecutor is also the legal advisor to the Yang Di Pertuan Agong and the Cabinet. Surely, his views must hold some weight. It is somewhat alarming if not embarrassing, to see a situation here where the views of the AG on something so significant have not only been disregarded but completely disregarded.
So, what is the AG’s position now? Is he going to make a U turn on his earlier views and criticism and now support preventive detention, which he himself has said was a failure or will he do the honorable thing and stick to his guns and support opposition to it?