KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 — Undergraduates can be expelled from universities if they are charged with a law that vaguely outlaws activities harmful to parliamentary democracy, senior law lecturer Azmi Sharom said today.
Azmi highlighted the problem of the new criminal offence introduced in 2012 as Section 124B of the Penal Code, with the vague and undefined phrase of “parliamentary democracy” making it impossible to know what would amount to a threat against it.
“Where students are concerned, if they are charged, they can have disciplinary action taken against them, that is (in) the Universities and University Colleges Act, so you don’t have to be found guilty to be expelled from your institution, you can merely be charged,” the associate professor at Universiti Malaya’s (UM) law faculty said at the Bar Council’s forum “Section 124 of the Penal Code and Parliamentary Democracy” here.
He gave the hypothetical example of university students gathering to call for the prime minister’s resignation and being charged under Section 124B, saying that they could be expelled by the time the court finds them not guilty.
“So this is what I’m saying. This is what concerns me — the amount of repression that we are facing now is almost getting to the point of ridiculousness. It is ridiculous, it is ridiculous,” he added.
Lawyer Gobind Singh Deo also said the lack of a definition in the Penal Code for the term “parliamentary democracy” made the new law open to abuse, noting that Section 124B is punishable by a mandatory jail term of up to 20 years.
Gobind said Parliament should avoid making laws with such a broadly-worded provision and leave Malaysians to face the risk of imprisonment, as well as going through numerous court cases to decide on the actual meaning intended before finally repealing it as a draconian law decades later.
“Why don’t we start on the right footing and say to yourself — when we legislate, we do not legislate with phrases as broad as this, because when we do this, it is the people that are in peril by prosecution in cases which go beyond what is required,” the Puchong MP said at the same forum.
UM’s Prof Gurdial Singh Nijar, another speaker at the forum, said Malaysia had wrongly copied the UK legal position when it introduced a slew of amendments to Section 124 of the Penal Code.
He cited the then de-facto law minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, who had in a parliamentary speech, indicated that the Malaysian government was inspired by UK’s Security Services Act, which also talks about the prevention of the overthrowing or undermining of parliamentary democracy.
But Gurdial pointed out that UK has no written constitution and its Parliament is supreme, while Malaysia’s written Federal Constitution is supreme.
“This is made very clear because if you look at a large number of Articles (in the Constitution), Article 4(1), 128, 162 (6) and so on, Parliament itself is subordinate to Constitution itself, so where is the question of preserving, not undermining parliamentary democracy?” the law professor asked.
He added that parliamentary democracy can be challenged in court in Malaysia.
“As far as this Act is concerned, which is intended to protect the national integrity of the country, the Act itself, the provisions itself are flawed and therefore becomes entirely unconstitutional,” he said when commenting on the amendments to Section 124.
New offences under Section 124B to Section 124N were tabled on April 10, 2012 and came into effect on July 31, 2012.
Those convicted for the new offences of attempting to commit activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy or printing documents against parliamentary democracy are liable to a maximum jail term of 15 years, while those who own or receive such documents can be punished by up to 10 years in jail.
Anyone who imports such documents or publications can be punished with up to five years’ jail.
