KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 23 ― Putrajaya would be merely presenting “old poison in a new bottle” to Malaysians if it repeals the Sedition Act 1948 but keeps its elements in another law, critics have said.

Lawyer Eric Paulsen said that de facto law minister Nancy Shukri’s remarks yesterday showed that the government was having “cold feet” and that the “essence” of the colonial-era law would be retained and possibly “repackaged in a different form”.

“Any repackaging of the Sedition Act would merely be old poison in a new bottle and is certainly not acceptable in this day and age,” the co-founder of Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) told Malay Mail Online when contacted.

He expressed his disappointment with the federal government, seeing the move as yielding to the demands of right wing groups for the “archaic law” to be kept.

Eric questioned the purpose of introducing a National Harmony Act if elements of the Sedition Act that it was meant to replace are kept, saying that “it would seem that now we have more laws governing what people can say or do” and would be a “double blow for human rights and democratic principles” here.

Yap Swee Seng, the Gerakan Hapuskan Anti Hasutan (GHAH) spokesman, similarly said that it would be akin to “putting old wine in a new bottle” if the Sedition Act is preserved by shifting its provisions into another law.

This would effectively mean that the Sedition Act remains in force but under a different name, with the new law to inherit and “continue to have the same problems”, the anti-Sedition Act activist said.

“That will really not bode well for the promise of the prime minister because his promise is to repeal the Sedition Act,” the Suaram executive director said, referring to Najib’s 2012 promise.

There is no need for Putrajaya to roll out a new law with Sedition Act elements as the Penal Code already provides sufficient powers to the government to deal with speeches that incite violence or hatred, he said.

“The provision in Penal Code is more balanced between the need to take action on hate speech and incitement of violence and also more balanced in protecting freedom of expression of the people,” Yap said, citing Section 504 of the Penal Code as an example.

Yesterday, Nancy said some of the important elements in the Sedition Act which cannot be carried to its long-awaited and proposed replacement ― the National Harmony Act ― would be maintained in other legislations.

When asked about the specific elements that she thinks should be retained, Nancy directed Malay Mail Online to Section 3 of the Sedition Act, which comes with the heading “seditious tendency”.

Syahredzan Johan, chairman of the Bar Council’s National Young Lawyers Committee spearheading the #MansuhAktaHasutan (Repeal Sedition Act) campaign, said that retaining elements such as the “criminalisation of racially inflammatory speech” would be acceptable.

But citing problematic elements such as the law’s arbitrariness, the civil rights lawyer said: “There's no point in repealing the Sedition Act if you are just going to replicate the weaknesses in a new legislation.”

If flaws such as the “low threshold” for someone to be found guilty of sedition resurface in the Sedition Act’s replacement, Syahredzan said that those who had protested against the 1948 Act would then campaign against the new law.

Civil rights lawyer New Sin Yew said “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, pointing out that it would be “unfair” if the two major flaws of the Sedition Act are kept.

“The biggest problem with the Sedition Act is number one, intention is irrelevant. Somebody may not want to incite racial hatred or violence, but they’ll still be liable.

“Number two, it doesn’t matter whether there’s any actual evidence of racial hatred or violence as a result of what someone said,” said the lawyer who had tabled a motion for lawyers to march against Sedition Act which was later absorbed into the Malaysian Bar’s resolution at its extraordinary general meeting last Friday.

The existing laws such as Section 124H of the Penal Code is adequate to deal with any incitement of violence, racial hatred or national security, New said.

The three lawyers also dismissed Nancy’s remark yesterday that many lawyers still prefer the Sedition Act to be kept as only a “small percentage” of the Malaysian Bar’s 15,693-strong members voted on the resolution to condemn the law and call for its repeal.

Syahredzan said the Legal Profession Act 1976 requires a quorum for an EGM which was fulfilled and had voted to carry the motion.

“You can’t make an assumption that the 90 per cent of the people does not support the motion. This is a very creative way of disputing what is a legitimate resolution, a legally passed resolution,” he said.

In last week’s EGM, a reported 986 members or about 6.2 per cent of the total 15,693 members of the professional body representing Peninsular Malaysia’s lawyers showed up. Of that, 701 had voted in support of the motion, 13 against, while 272 abstained.