No place for caning in civilised society, Putrajaya told

PETALING JAYA: Human rights lawyers have urged the Pakatan Harapan government to reconsider its decision to retain caning as a form of punishment.

Fortify Rights legal director Eric Paulsen told FMT that caning offenders amounted to torture and was a “cruel, inhuman and degrading” punishment under international human rights laws.

“Caning has no place in any civilised society in this day and age,” he said, adding that it caused humiliation and long-term psychological effects to those subjected to the punishment.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Hanipa Maidin told the Dewan Rakyat yesterday that the government felt the need to retain the punishment but that it was studying the matter.

“For now, there is no decision to abolish whipping. This punishment has been around in the country for a long time, and I admit, it has a deterrent effect.

“Do we want to change this? Under existing laws, a judge can exercise his or her discretion to replace whipping with a jail term, if they find that whipping will be detrimental to the person,” he said.

Paulsen, however, argued that PH’s election promise under Article 26 of its manifesto, which states that it will make Malaysia’s human rights record respected in the world, would be impossible to fulfil if caning was retained.

“The government has also stated that it intends to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT). Surely that would be inconsistent if caning is retained, as under the CAT, caning is clearly interpreted as amounting to torture,” he added.

Latheefa Koya, who heads Lawyers for Liberty, questioned how caning was justified for immigration cases, adding that this was an administrative offence.

She urged the government to do away completely with caning but said if this could only be done in stages, the punishment for immigration offences should be removed.

Syarie lawyer Nizam Bashir told FMT that whipping as a form of punishment subsists in both civil and Islamic law.

He added that the debate on its abolishment straddled both divine and worldly laws.

“Nevertheless, if we keep in mind that divine laws in Malaysia are merely state laws armed with taazir, or discretionary punishments, the debate becomes easier and we can focus on the primary aim of a criminal justice system, which is to rehabilitate offenders,” he said, adding that the Islamic criminal justice system was more preventive than punitive in nature.

He said if the purpose of caning was to rehabilitate offenders, there were many other alternatives to achieve this goal.

“This particular quote by Muhammad Ali comes to mind: ‘When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.’ Shouldn’t we just be inculcating peace?” - FMT