Report: Allowing ex-PM to serve home detention undermines the rule of law, says group

 

LETTING former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to serve the rest of his prison sentence at home will subvert the rule of law, said a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

In a statement on Thursday (May 2), Projek Sama said this is because the Home Minister has not made any regulation to allow for home detentions.

Elaborating, the group said Section 43 of the Prisons Act 1995 allows any prisoners to be released “on licence”, subject to “any regulation made by the minister”.

“Effectively freeing Najib in the name of home detention would be an affront to the rule of law. It would be a blatant demonstration of ‘double standards’ of law enforcement,” it noted.

“Worse, it would be a subversion of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, a subversion of the very foundation of the Malaysian state.”

It added that if a clause allowing the former Pekan MP’s judicial sentence to be substituted with house detention does exist, it goes against the principle that laws can only be made by elected legislatures and governments.

Projek Sama was referring to an alleged “addendum order” issued by former Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah in January, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s affidavit confirming the document’s existence.

For context, Najib is seeking leave from the court to initiate judicial review to enforce the alleged royal addendum, allowing him to serve his time under house arrest instead of in Kajang Prison.

He is also seeking leave to compel the Home Minister, the attorney-general, the Pardons Board, the federal government, and a few other respondents to confirm the royal addendum’s existence. – Focus Malaysia