Penalties for body shaming too wide, says lawyer

 

Bar Council committee chairmen Roger Chan and Muhammad Rafique gave differing views on body shaming.

PETALING JAYA: Recent remarks by the Inspector-General of Police that “body shaming” is a crime have drawn conflicting responses from two leading members of the Malaysian Bar.

Roger Chan, chairman of the Bar Council’s human rights committee, told FMT that the laws cited are too broad and do not properly define what constitutes “body shaming”.

“What is ‘body shaming’? If I make a comment that maybe you don’t like in a tone you don’t like, is that a crime? There are no factual metrics here,” Chan said.

He also says that a line needs to be drawn between bullying and a crime, as the breadth of the legislation gives room for potential abuse.

“We need to decide what society’s standards are here, because there has to be a difference between committing a crime and something that is just offensive.”

IGP Abdul Hamid Bador had said on Sunday that any act of body shaming by insulting or disparaging someone’s body is a crime that could be punished under provisions of the Penal Code, Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) and Minor Offences Act on obscene and insulting language.

Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali, chairman of the Bar’s criminal law committee, agrees that there would be a legal basis for charging those who make such comments.

He described body shaming as “abhorrent and to be detested morally”.

If reports were lodged and evidence showed that the reports had merit, then offenders could be prosecuted under the various laws cited by the IGP, he said.

A complainant would need to be able to provide evidence of the offending material in order to proceed, and says that the breadth of the legislation covers body shaming comments despite not being explicitly defined in the law.

“The fact that the perpetrator exhibits such body shaming acts or tendencies is in itself an offence, of course subject to investigation.”

While the police have the right to charge those responsible, he says that ultimately it would be up to the courts to decide whether individual cases fit the necessary criteria.

On the topic of punishment, Chan says the laws “lack proportionality” as the spectrum of severity is wide.

The Penal Code provides a penalty of up to five years in jail, while the CMA provides for a fine of up to RM50,000 or a maximum jail term of one year or both.

Under the Minor Offences Act, however, an offender could face fines up to RM100, which Chan said was the most fair punishment

“There are ways to deal with these sorts of things without charging a person,” he says, “if there is no proportionality, the laws will upset the purpose of the entire legislation.” - FMT