PETALING JAYA (May 28): The director-general of the Immigration department has no jurisdiction to stop Malaysians from coming back to the country by revoking their passports, lawyers said.
Commenting on a statement by Immigration director-general (DG) Datuk Alias Ahmad, who was quoted as saying that action could be taken under Section 8 of the Immigration Act 1959/1963 to revoke Malaysians' passports from three to five years for protesting overseas, civil liberties lawyer Syahredzan Johan said that Section 8 only applies to foreigners, not Malaysians.
Syahredzan also pointed out that Section 7 of the Immigration Act explicitly provides that a citizen is entitled to enter Malaysia without need for permits or passes, except to Sabah and Sarawak.
"A passport is just for administrative purposes," Syahredzan told fz.com in a phone interview.
When a Malaysian travels overseas, the passport is a document to prove that he is a Malaysian, because the other country does not recognise the identity card issued by the Malaysian government. When a Malaysian lands in Malaysia, if he does not have a passport, he can show his identity card to prove that he is a Malaysian, he added.
"He (the DG) has no business in trying to stop Malaysians from entering Malaysia. And he has no business in commenting on what Malaysian people are doing overseas, because this is beyond his jurisdiction," Syahredzan said.
He pointed out that the DG cannot stop people from entering the country by exercising administrative power, because this decision (of revoking a passport) cannot be reviewed in court. If the government wants to take action against a citizen, the best way was to bring the person to court, said Syahredzan.
"Let's say the DG has the power to stop Malaysians from coming in, which he doesn't. He would be using his administrative power to punish the people by way of administrative action, which cannot be challenged in court, and this is against good governance," he said.
Bar Council president Christopher Leong said that the government should not be using administrative actions to punish Malaysian citizens. If it has grounds it should instead use the court, he said when contacted by fz.com.
"The DG must also bear in mind that there is a difference between a government and the country. Criticising the government is not the same as criticising the country. He must not confuse the two," Leong said.
He added that every citizen has the right to criticise the government and the government is obliged to take the criticism.
"The government should, instead of using its administrative power as a sledgehammer to quash criticism, engage in dialogue and seek to turn criticism into praise. The government should use whatever resources it has available to win the hearts and minds of the people instead of trying to suppress them.
"The government has the opportunity in the next few years to win over the people. They should, therefore, take this opportunity to show the people that they are a worthy government irrespective of what they may think about the election that has just occurred," Leong added.
Alias had been reported in the Berita Harian as saying that the department would not hesitate to cite Section 8 of the Act to stop any person from entering the country from three to five years for violating any law or shaming the country.
"Malaysians who violate the law and shame the country can be blacklisted and their passports can be revoked for three to five years. We are waiting for the report from Wisma Putra concerning our people who do such things overseas," Alias said.
He said this when responding to Berita Harian about the actions of certain Malaysian students who held demonstrations, displayed the Malaysian flag upside down and posted comments on social media calling for the government to be overthrown.
When asked what law the government could use to charge persons who participated in protests overseas, Syahredzan replied that there is no law that could be used in this case, because what is done by Malaysians overseas is out of the jurisdiction of the government.
"At the end of the day, these are just ways of trying to threaten Malaysians to prevent them from protesting. This is not healthy," Syahredzan added.
Coalition for free and fair elections, Bersih 2.0, steering committee member Maria Chin Abdullah opined that the DG's remark totally violates the freedom of expression enshrined in the Federal Constitution.
While Global Bersih had held demonstrations around the cities of the world to demand for free and fair elections, however, Maria stressed that no call was made by any protesters to overthrow the government.
She saw Alias' remark as one of a series of repressive actions that took place after the 13th general election.
"After the general election, there was a lot of intimidation and scare tactics used by the government, all relating to the general election result. I feel strongly the government should stop doing this," Maria added.
She said that the people had moved on and wished to have a greater say in how the country is shaped. The government should recognise this and do their job instead of scaring people with such tactics, said Maria.
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