LETTER | Best leave reform to the experts

LETTER | About two months ago, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said said that the government was ready to engage with relevant parties to include the bipartisan Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) in the appointment process of the chief commissioner of the MACC.

Azalina was responding to Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) Kota Bharu MP Takiyuddin Hassan. The minister assured the Dewan Rakyat that the government welcomed any opinion to improve the conduct of the national anti-graft body.

“The government is very open to the views and suggestions voiced by various parties including the honourable member to improve the effectiveness of the MACC.

“The relevant parties will examine this matter for appropriate action,” she said in a parliamentary reply.

It was therefore curious that the minister, in announcing the establishment of a Protem Committee to look into strengthening the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC), should say that the “Protem Committee will, among other things, study the need to include the MACC as one of the enforcement agencies listed under EAIC’s supervision.”

The Protem Committee was agreed to by the cabinet on April 19, 2023. Seventeen days earlier, EAIC CEO Norhayati Ahmad reportedly told Sinar Harian that of 6,683 complaints it received, the EAIC investigated 1,113 cases and resolved them.

According to Norhayati, the EAIC has 23 officers to deploy to the location of an incident to interview the individuals involved in the investigation. She also said the EAIC is working to improve its SOP and visiting the 21 agencies under its purview to recommend areas of improvement to the government.

In an exclusive interview with the same Malay-language daily newspaper in December 2020, EAIC chairperson Mohd Sidek Hassan admitted that enforcement by the commission was lacking.

He said the commission was unable to ensure integrity was practised in the 21 enforcement agencies, as the EAIC had only 78 staff members and an annual budget of RM8 million.

“So, that is not possible. We have to work with other agencies, especially those under our purview,” he was quoted as saying.

“The police force itself has 130,000 staff. With EAIC’s 78 staff, how can we oversee 130,000 people?” he added.

With the greatest of respect, there is already a good reason not to add the MACC to the 21 agencies under the EAIC.

The EAIC was established to address issues of integrity among enforcement agencies which were seen to be wanting in certain areas. As Norhayati said, it seeks to improve integrity among 21 law enforcement agencies to boost public confidence in their staff.

However, Section 1(5) of the EAIC Act 2009 exempts the MACC from being monitored by the EAIC – for good reasons, it is said. The MACC already has its own independent oversight bodies – five in total.

The five bodies are the Special Committee on Corruption which consists of seven MPs, the Anti-Corruption Advisory Board, the Complaints Committee, Operations Review Panel and Consultation and Corruption Prevention Panel.

Why the need to add the EAIC as the sixth oversight body? A former director of the MACC has been reported by online news portal Free Malaysia Today to have described the proposal as a “stupid move”.

Be that as it may, there are good reasons also for considering reforming the MACC. This is despite the commission having been established under the MACC Act 2009 as an independent commission and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim saying in Parliament in the Dewan Rakyat that the MACC is already “an independent body.”

Independence should be secured, among others, by giving the MACC chief security of tenure.

The appointment of the MACC chief should be by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on the recommendation of the prime minister after the recommended candidate has been approved by a Parliamentary Select/Joint Committee.

The MACC will thus be overseen by a parliamentary committee. This was what Azalina said two months ago that the government was ready to listen to such a proposal.

Now, if the MACC needs reforming – at least on the appointment of its chief – it is best to leave the matter to subject-matter experts, who are persons possessing a deep understanding of a particular subject.

These experts will have collected their knowledge through intensive levels of learning and training, or through years of professional experience with the subject, giving them a level of understanding regarding their subject that is not common knowledge.

Pooled together, these SMEs can constitute an independent law reform commission (LRC), which Azalina herself said that she would be proposing its set-up to the government.

“A standalone [and independent] law commission will enable it to engage with a broader spectrum of talent, not just within the legal field, but also the sociologists, scientists, and the business community to propose reforms to the necessary laws,” she said at the Human Rights Day Forum 2022 in December last year.

If the government is serious about reforms, Azalina, respectfully, should be talking about the establishment of an LRC.

Or even better – that the government has agreed to the draft of a Law Reform Commission Bill which, if passed by Parliament, will establish an independent LRC.

It’s best to leave matters like reforms to the experts.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.