Proposed law against insulting PM worse than Anti-Fake News Act, says lawyer

 

Lawyer Haniff Khatri Abdulla says there cannot be laws that discriminate between the people and leaders.

PETALING JAYA: Lawyer Haniff Khatri Abdulla has slammed a proposal by a PPBM senator to enact laws to punish those found insulting the prime minister, saying it is worse than the Anti-Fake News Act introduced by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government.

He told FMT that although former prime minister Najib Razak used to be frequently criticised and attacked during his time leading the country, his government had never introduced a special law to protect leaders.

Haniff, who is also Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s lawyer, added that the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government would be “more cruel” than the BN administration if it were to proceed with the senator’s proposal.

“Najib’s government only enacted anti-fake news laws, but that law was used for all, it wasn’t just to protect leaders,” he said, referring to the Act that was abolished by the Pakatan Harapan government in 2019.

“Now senator Razali Idris is proposing a law to ban insults against leaders and the prime minister. This is more backward than the anti-fake news law. He’s proposing for a law that specifically makes insulting leaders a crime,” he said.

He also said implementing different laws for citizens and leaders with the aim of protecting such leaders went against the Federal Constitution, warning Putrajaya that it could not continue to create double standards.

“There cannot be laws that place leaders above the people. If the government enacts this law to protect ministers or the prime minister from insults, then clearly the government practices illegal double standards.

“There cannot be laws that discriminate between the people and leaders,” he said, citing Article 8 of the Federal Constitution.

He said criticisms and insults levelled against the government by Malaysians on social media should instead serve as motivation for PN to improve and resolve its weaknesses, as long as the criticisms were not criminal, slanderous and seditious.

If criticisms were to be criminal, slanderous or seditious, there were enough laws available that the government could use to act against offenders, he said.

Razali, who is chairman of the Dewan Negara’s caucus on people’s well-being, had proposed the new law, after comments were posted against Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on an Indonesian website following his visit there last week.

The senator said the insults on social media had become a “mental illness”, calling for either a new law to be enacted or an amendment to be made to Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act. - FMT