Pakatan betrayed Malaysians by allowing passage of Pota — P Ramakrishnan
Wednesday April , 2015
02:13 PM GMT+8
02:13 PM GMT+8
APRIL — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) had not acted responsibly and had therefore
betrayed the expectations of Malaysians. They were expected to protect
the human rights of citizens, safeguard the rule of law and ensure that
abusive laws would not be passed by default.
By all measures, Malaysians have been terribly let down by PR’s failure
to anticipate that the Barisan Nasional was hell-bent on pushing
through this corrosive Bill, come what may. The fact that the BN was
prepared to be in Parliament into the wee hours of the morning to have
their way clearly showed how determined they were to achieve their
objective of passing the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015 (Pota).
For PR to say that they did not anticipate there would be bloc voting is a lame excuse that is not acceptable.
Tony Pua hit the nail on the head when he told Malay Mail Online, “Of course there would be bloc voting, the point is to be prepared for that.”
To claim that there was no prior instruction for all law makers to be
present is to fail in their duty as elected representatives. They don’t
have to be mollycoddled; they should be responsible to themselves. They
should know how to conduct themselves when faced with a situation that
threatened to take away our basic, fundamental rights.
They owe it to those who voted for them.
Had all the PR MPs been present, this draconian Bill would have been
defeated. After all, it was passed with 79 votes for and 60 against.
With full PR attendance, the final vote count would have been 70 for and
86 against. There was this golden opportunity to throw out this drastic
Bill that violated the rule of law.
Unfortunately, PR goofed! A total
of 26 PR MPs helped to pass this undemocratic Bill.
Out of the 132 BN MPs, only 70 were present, with 62 of them absent. It
could be interpreted that these 62 MPs were not in favour of the Bill
and so they stayed away giving the PR a slim chance to defeat the Bill.
But 26 PR MPs absented themselves and, as it were, saved the day for the
BN!
As a result, the Bill was passed in its original form without any
amendments. It can be argued that the ISA has returned in another garb.
The Potahas all the characteristics of the ISA: the proposed law will
allow the authorities to detain suspected terrorists without bringing
them to Court for up to two years, with the Prevention of Terrorism
Board (POTB) empowered to renew the detention order indefinitely.
We must take it with a pinch of salt that this law would be applicable
only for terrorists. The assurance does not hold water. Weren’t we told
that the Internal Security Act (ISA) was meant for the communists — but
how many non-communists and legitimate political dissidents were
detained under the ISA? Will it be any different this time around?
Human Rights Watch said Potahas re-opened the “Pandora’s Box for
politically motivated, abusive state actions” that had been a feature
when Putrajaya used the former ISA.
The Bill does not allow any judicial review in any Court — no Court
shall have jurisdiction over decisions by the board in its discretionary
power. When the judiciary is ousted, it paves the way for abuse and
arbitrariness. It is always repugnant when an accused is denied his
defence in a Court of law. We cannot pretend to be a democracy when we
pay scant respect to the rule of law.
PR can get ready to be roasted!
* P Ramakrishnan is an executive committee member of Aliran.