Don’t blame courts when it’s A-G who decides on sedition, says lawyers’ group
Putrajaya should stop shifting blame to the courts when it is the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) that decides first who is to be prosecuted for sedition, a lawyers’ group said.
Lawyers for Liberty executive director Eric Paulsen (pic) said it was elementary that all criminal charges were brought by the AGC, acting as public prosecutor, and the courts were only the adjudicator.
"It is trite and common knowledge that the Attorney-General’s Chambers is an appendage of the government and far from being independent. It also acts at the behest and interest of the government," he said in a statement.
He said this in response to a statement from the Prime Minister's Office that the government would repeal the Sedition Act and replace it with the National Harmony Bill as pledged.
It said that until new law was in place, existing cases must be tried under existing laws.
The statement said any charges under the Sedition Act were a matter for the courts to decide.
Paulsen said it was highly irresponsible of Putrajaya to shift the burden to the judiciary to resolve the spate of sedition charges when it was the AGC that was responsible for misusing its prosecutorial powers against opposition leaders and dissidents.
He said his organisation was astonished that the Prime Minister's Office could make such a blatantly misleading and untrue statement that “until new legislation is in place, existing cases must be tried under existing laws”.
Paulsen said Putrajaya's insistence that the Sedition Act would still be repealed made no sense as a responsible and democratic government would act consistently with the repeated promises by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to repeal the law.
He said the AGC was being extreme in its use of the law, pending its removal from the statute book.
"Sedition is an antiquated and undemocratic offence, a relic from a bygone era and most modern states have repealed or put it into disuse. It certainly has no place in a modern and democratic Malaysia that we aspire to be."
He said his organisation called for all sedition charges to be withdrawn immediately and a moratorium to be imposed.
In the past week, Padang Serai MP N. Surendran, Shah Alam MP and PAS central committee member Khalid Samad, and DAP Seri Delima assemblyman R.S.N. Rayer have been charged with sedition.
DAP Seputeh MP Teresa Kok and PKR Batu MP Tian Chua are also facing trial for sedition.
Critics said the move as an attempt by Putrajaya to silence its political foes. – August 31, 2014.
