The Bar Council today submitted a memorandum to the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) asking for a public inquiry over the arrest of five lawyers on May 7.
Bar Council chairperson Ragunath Kesavan said the human rights body should also investigate the conduct of certain police personnel.
“We want Suhakam to immediately launch a public inquiry into the incident and also on the conduct of certain police personnel especially (Brickfields police chief) OCPD ACP Wan Abdul Bari and DSP Jude Pereira of the Brickfields police station who were directly involved in the arrest, detention and interrogation of these lawyers,” he said.
Ragunath added that there was no reason for the overnight detention of the lawyers as no further action was taken besides recording their statements.
“No investigation was carried out requiring their detention,” he said.
'Punish and humiliate'
He also said that the police conduct was to “punish and humiliate” the five lawyers and to discourage lawyers in general from being present in police stations to assist detained persons.
He stressed the position of lawyers as a check-and-balance mechanism against police excess.
“And more often than not (when a person is detained) it will be in a police station so the lawyers would have to be present at the police station and subsequently to arrest them is a transgression of law,” Ragunath said.
The Bar Council argues that the detention of the five lawyers is different from other circumstances as these lawyers were acting in their capacity as counsel and not as private citizens.
Preliminary probe conducted
The five lawyers were arrested for what police claimed were illegal assembly after attempting to provide legal aid to a group of individuals who were nabbed during a candlelight vigil in support of Bersih activist Wong Chin Huat, who himself was detained under the Sedition Act. All of them were released after being detained overnight.
The memorandum was received by Human Rights Commissioner Chiam Heng Keng on behalf of Suhakam chairperson Abu Talib Othman who was out of town.
She said that this is not the first memorandum submitted to Suhakam regarding the incident as ERA Consumer has also submitted a memorandum on the arrests after the incident.
She said that Suhakam had already conducted preliminary investigation at the Brickfields police station and the issue will also be discussed during the commission meeting in June.
As for the chances of a public inquiry, she said Suhakam would have to probe further into the incident before deciding.
Also present were three of the five detained lawyers - Fadiah Nadwa Fikri, Ravinder Singh and Murnie Hidayah Anuar.
20/05/09
No man should be above the law,specially all tan sri,tun including royals;strip all immunities.Only then the law will have upper hand.
ReplyDeleteMost of these culprits are hiding in their protective titles,so you could imagine our legal direction in the long run?