COMMENT | MACC - Happy 53rd anniversary

COMMENT | Last week MACC celebrated what it calls its 53rd anniversary. Even the king sent his congratulatory message. Many of us also would like to wish MACC well and hope MACC becomes an institution that will be cherished by the public for years to come.

MACC was founded in 2009, so it is not accurate to describe the event as 53rd anniversary. The precursor to MACC was an agency far different from the present one.

Our earlier Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) was smaller and less imposing, their top officers do not wear uniforms like the military. They prosecute corruption offences under the Penal Code, always guided by the provisions of the Evidence Act and Criminal Procedure Code (CPC). Those were the days when criminal laws were a lot simpler and fair.

Now the MACC Act has openly watered down and altered the presumption of innocence, and burden of proof, which for hundreds of years had been the cardinal principle of our criminal law. In almost all the offences under the act, the presumption of guilt is a standard approach, it's up to the accused person to prove his innocence.

For offences under Sections12, 18, 20, 21, 22, and 23 it is immediately considered that the gratification is presumed to be corruptly done unless the contrary is proved by...