KUALA LUMPUR, April 23 ― The controversial Sedition Act 1948 is “bad law” if the authorities use it to tighten their grip on power, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.

The former prime minister, who admitted to using the now repealed Internal Security Act (ISA) to arrest scores of dissenters during his 22-year reign, said there are a lot of things that are not seditious.

“When you find a law is used for the wrong purpose, it becomes bad law,” Dr Mahathir said during a question and answer session at the Malaysian Social Media Week 2015.

“If you say we should have a civil war to overthrow the government, that is seditious.

“If you say the government is not doing too well and we need a change of leader, that's not seditious... am I talking about myself? I don't know,” he said.

In recent weeks, Dr Mahathir had been actively calling for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to step down over several policies pursued by the latter, including the cancellation of the so-called “Crooked Bridge” to replace the existing Singapore-Johor Causeway and questionable investment practices by the state-owned 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

In the mid-1980s during the earlier years of his prime ministership, Dr Mahathir’s administration used the ISA to detain hundreds of opposition politicians and dissenters under the infamous Ops Lalang crackdown.

While the ISA has since been repealed under Najib’s watch, the current prime minister, however, did an about turn on his pledge to abolish the colonial era Sedition Act and instead pushed through a raft of amendments which critics say grant wider powers to the authorities.

Despite his criticism of the use of the Sedition Act, Dr Mahathir today said that the blame does not lie with legislation but with those who enforce the law.

He argued that every single law in the world is drafted to limit people’s freedom to do specific things, such as stealing.

Dr Mahathir said a law is good when its use is limited to its intended purpose and those implicated are given the chance to defend themselves in a court of law.

“Unfortunately there is a tendency to abuse (laws)... that’s the problem with all laws.

“If a law is used to keep yourself in power, then it is wrong,” he said.