SHAH ALAM, August 22: The government has been urged to use more modern and progressive laws, and to respect basic human rights to curb violent crime in this country, stressed the Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) NGO.
According to the Co-Founder of LFL, Eric Paulsen, the human rights and law modernisation group does not agree with the government’s decision to use the Prevention of Crime Act (PCA) 1959, which allows the police to detain a suspect up to 72 days without trial.
We find such a long period of detention excessive and unnecessary and is effectively detention without trial,” said the NGO’s cofounder Eric Paulsen.
He also urged for the government to emulate the laws in the United Kingdom to handle organised crime by the collaboration of various bodies and agencies to identify and control criminals.
“The Serious Organised Crimes Agency (SOCA) was created to handle organised crime in a more effective and modern way,” said Paulsen.
SOCA involves the cooperation of the police, customs, immigration and other authorities to gather information on organised crime groups and identify the financial assets of the group including property, businesses and bank accounts.
He said that the modern way to resolve it is way better than the PCA 1959, which is seen as ‘unacceptable’ because it is vulnerable to abuse.
“The magistrate will merely ‘rubber stamp’ the police application for remand.
“Consequently, these long remands have led to serious abuse of power including extortion, assault, torture and deaths in custody. We find this totally unacceptable,” he said.