By S Arutchelvan
YESTERDAY, the police announced that they plan to call 29 participants of the Kita Lawan rally held on July 31. It is believed that eleven of them have been summoned to the Dang Wangi police station today.
And I am sure after today’s MPs gathering at Dataran Merdeka, another list will be out and more work will be piling up for the police.
It is time for the police and Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) to revise the police standard operating procedure (SOP) and do away with this obsolete practice.
The irony is, this whole exercise is a waste of police time and involves bureaucratic glitch which does benefit anyone at all. Allow me to explain!
In general, public assemblies are open and shut cases. If the police feels that an offence has been committed, they can straight away charge the offenders since the assembly is recorded by the police.
In the current practice, the police will lodge their own report to initiate an investigation where in most cases, the activist will say they will speak in court when statement is being recorded.
Prior to that, these people will have to be issued with notices under Section 111 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which needs to be served personally to each of them. After that, the police have to arrange officers from the rank of Inspector or above to record statements. Only after that, the case goes to the deputy public prosecutor (DPP).
Wasting time on bureaucracy
The question is, why not the police circumvent this tedious procedure by sending the case file straight to the DPP, if they really think there was violation of the law since they already recorded the assembly?
For the Kita Lawan rally, Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) has already come forward and said that the assembly was well organised and participants followed SOP strictly.
If there was a SOP breach committed, the police can immediately issue a compound to the person on the spot. If there the alleged offender disputes it, then a court case can proceed. Here I would like to repeat my question, why do we need an investigation conducted to check on SOP violation?
This is again, another open and shut situation.
When the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 (PAA) was enacted, the Government stated its commitment to respect freedom of assembly, as stipulated under Article 10 of the Federal Constitution, as well as keeping up with the international standards.
However, by summoning activist each time an assembly takes place, it gives an impression that such investigation is political motivated towards curbing our freedom of assemble as guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.
It is time for the new Inspector-General of Police to put forward a new set of SOP for public assemblies, which I am sure his own officers will be relieved as they can focus on their real duties, which is crime busting. – Aug 2, 2021.
S Arutchelvan is the deputy chairperson of Parti Sosialis Malaysia.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
