KUALA LUMPUR: Lim Kit Siang has castigated Home Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein for continuing to be a stumbling block in the formation of an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).
In his latest blog post, the DAP stalwart described Hishammuddin’s statement as the strongest proof of the continuing lack of political will to eradicate police abuses and corruption.
Hishammuddin recently confirmed that the door is still shut to IPCMC and maintained that the commission would not resolve police abuse cases.
He also said that “political will” to transform the police force was more crucial.
Responding to Hishammuddin’s statement, Lim wrote: “It was Hishammuddin who led the opposition to the establishment of the IPCMC when it was proposed by the Dzaiddin Royal Police Commission five years ago.
“The IPCMC was the most important of its 125 recommendations to create an efficient, incorruptible, professional and world-class police force.”
The Dzaiddin Royal Police Commission had even accompanied its recommendation with an enclosed draft legislation which detailed the IPCMC’s powers of investigation and inquiry to help fight corruption in the force and to investigate public complaints.
Almost immediately after the announcement, Umno Youth had shot down the recommendation over concerns that the IPCMC would be turned into an avenue by certain quarters to expose the weaknesses in the country’s administration.
Poor substitute
Two months later, the Bar Council launched a signature campaign in support of its establishment with the signatures handed over to then Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
In December 2007, Parliament unveiled the Special Complaints Commission (SCC) in place of the IPCMC which was aimed at addressing misconduct by all enforcement agencies.
Amnesty International Malaysia denounced the SCC as a poor substitute that lacked independence and failed to address the need for a mechanism that demanded police accountability for their actions.
“Hishammuddin even went against Abdullah who had publicly committed himself to accept and implement the IPCMC recommendation,” Lim said.
“The combined opposition of Umno and the police forced Abdullah to backtrack and finally scuttle the IPCMC proposal.”
In June 2009, the government also rejected the proposal on the basis that its powers were “too broad and unconstitutional”.
Lim said that the recent spate of high-profile police abuse cases and custodial deaths have once again highlighted the need for an IPCMC to address these cases with seriousness, authority, independence, impartiality and professionalism.
“With Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s ‘People First, Performance Now’ slogan, Hishammuddin should table a formal proposal to ask the Cabinet to revisit the IPCMC recommendation instead of continuing to spearhead its opposition,” he said.
Despite Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s claim that Malaysian police have transformed and excelled in fighting crime, there are those who insist that the force would have been even better if the proposed Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) had been implemented.
Expressing their deep regret over government’s failure to establish the IPCMC in front of dozens of senior police officers, two former members of the royal commission on the police force insisted that Malaysians would be enjoying a better police force had the IPCMC been set up.
This position was expressed by former chief justice Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah (left), who had chaired two royal commissions on the police force, and former Bar Council president Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari, who sat on the two commissions.
"We heard the (home) minister really praising the police. In my view, if all the IPCMC recommendations were implemented, it will be a service recognised worldwide," Kuthubul said at a discussion session during the International Conference on Principled Policing in Subang Jaya, Selangor, today.
The two-day conference was attended by senior leaders of local and foreign police and enforcement agencies as well as international policing experts.
‘Still very disappointed with rejection’
Kuthubul elaborated that an independent complaint mechanism such as the IPCMC was a popular demand in many countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Dzaiddin, who moderated the session, echoed Kuthubul (right), saying that he was still "very disappointed" and "sad" with the government’s rejection of many important recommendations made by the two commissions.
Another speaker, UiTM constitutional law professor Shad Saleem Faruqi, described the government’s rejection of the IPCMC proposal as a "serious drawback" in ensuring that the men in blue acted according to the rule of law.
The rejection, Shad said, was the result of robust resistance within the police force and the lack of will from senior police officers to push for reforms.
Without the independent body, Shad explained, Malaysians had no remedy if the reports they lodged with the police or other enforcement agencies were not investigated and acted upon by the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
The president of the International Movement for a Just World, Chandra Muzaffar, who was also invited to speak during the session, suggested that the IPCMC be "repackaged and reinstated" as an ombudsman that also covers other enforcement agencies in order to counter the negative perception of the IPCMC.
However, this argument was immediately demolished by Dzaiddin, who said the royal commission had rejected proposal for an ombudsman.
The IPCMC is the most important of 125 recommendations made by the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police, which was established in 2004.
Despite overwhelming support for the IPCMC from civil society, the government gave in to police resistance and shelved the proposal, subsequently replacing it with a Special Complaints Commission, a watered-down version of the IPCMC.
The second commission chaired by Dzaiddin was the royal commission of inquiry to look into the infamous "’nude squat" case, in which a video recording of a female detainee being ordered to perform sit-ups in the nude while in police custody was leaked on the Internet.
