PETALING JAYA: The government’s proposed investigative oversight body must not be modelled on the Enforcement Agency Investigation Commission (EAIC), said an activist who had called for the commission’s revival three years ago.
Rama Ramanathan said the EAIC was a “failed institution” because the police, who accounted for 90% of complaints the commission was investigating, did not accept its investigation reports.
The Citizens Against Enforced Disappearances spokesman said: “The prime minister must remember that even the Independent Police Conduct Commission (IPCC) bill, initially proposed by the then Pakatan Harapan government, and modelled on the EAIC, fell far off the mark.”
The EAIC is a federal statutory body established under the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission Act 2009 (Act 700) which came into effect on April 1, 2011.
The commission was empowered to investigate and conduct hearings into complaints against the police force and other enforcement agencies.
Rama told FMT the new oversight body would fail to meet Anwar’s goals if it did not have the same powers as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
“This commission should include retired senior police officers who left the force because they were unable to tolerate the police’s executive leadership letting it degenerate,” he said, adding that many such officers had moved on to different careers.
“It should also include persons who took early retirement from the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), retired senior judges, lawyers and those who have researched related issues.”
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told the Dewan Rakyat a new body to oversee and investigate all complaints against law enforcement bodies in the country was in the works
Anwar said he understood the public’s unease about enforcement bodies investigating public complaints about themselves, thus the need for an independent body to carry out this task.
Pushpan Murugiah, CEO of the Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4), said the oversight body must be headed by someone with expertise in the structure, internal workings and culture of the enforcement agencies being monitored.
Pushpan said this would include academics, lawyers, and former high-ranking civil servants.
“What is most important is that they possess extensive knowledge of how the enforcement agencies themselves function,” he said.
He said it was imperative that the oversight body should not be one in name alone, merely presenting an additional administrative barrier for enforcement agencies to “jump over”. - FMT
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