Names of new Suhakam commissioners submitted to PM

The names of the proposed new commissioners for the National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) were submitted to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad last week.

It is now up to the prime minister to announce the new Suhakam commissioners to be appointed, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Liew Vui Keong said today.

“The appointment has been done by the select committee within Suhakam.

“The names and all that have been given to the prime minister to make the announcement, so I hope that can be done as quickly as possible,” Liew told reporters after his keynote speech to the National High-Level Dialogue on Business and Human Rights forum in Putrajaya.

The terms of the previous Suhakam commissioners expired on April 25, 2019 and the seats have been vacant since. The previous chairperson Razali Ismail resigned two weeks before the end of his term.

Earlier in his keynote speech, Liew had announced that the cabinet had agreed to place human rights matters under his portfolio in the cabinet meeting last Wednesday. This would place Suhakam under his ministry.

“At this juncture, I wish to announce a new development, where cabinet last Wednesday had approved and endorsed the recommendation for human rights to be under my portfolio in the Legal Affairs Department, and I will be assisted by all the able officers,” he said in his speech.

He said that before this, there was no specific government body that was tasked to govern corporate respect of human rights as a whole.

“The existing government institutions are tasked to govern specific issues such as anti-corruption, anti-trafficking in persons, good governance and integrity, just to name a few, without an overarching mandate to administer companies’ responsibility to respect human rights,” he explained.

He hopes that with the human rights affairs under his portfolio now, this new development will pave a significant and positive way forward in the governance of human rights in Malaysia. - Mkini