Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak gave his assurance today the government will consider human rights in striking a balance in a new law that will adress serious crimes.

“The important thing I want to underscore is the government’s commitment to fight crime - especially serious and organised crimes.

“We will do whatever it takes to tackle serious crime in this country but we must also be mindful of possible transgressions of human rights,” he told a press conference after chairing the Umno supreme council meeting in Kuala Lumpur this evening.

Najib said this in response to a query on the nature of a new law being mooted to replace the Emergency Ordinance (EO) that provided for indefinite detention without trial, which was repealed last year.

However, the prime minister declined to weigh in on whether the new law would allow for preventive detention, but said there would be a balance.

"We will come back and we will address that (preventive detention) later. We are in the process of looking at how to deal with serious crime in the country in a very effective way and prevent possible abuses of human rights.

"So, we are looking fron all angles now," Najib said.

Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail has said that he is opposed for any form of preventive detention in the law to replace the EO.

However, former inspector-general of police Abdul Rahim Noor has criticised Gani for failing to understand police operations and argued that preventive detention was necessary for the police to take preemptive action against the criminal underworld.