The government faces these public relations problems with the recent verdict in the rape case involving a policeman and two illegal immigrants:

  • Police constable Razali Pilen had sex with two female illegal immigrants in police custody at the Hulu Langat district police station on Feb 24;

  • Ampang Session Court President (Mohamed Saman Mohd Ramli) who viewed the closed circuit recording of the incidents judged the detainees as having acted voluntarily comparing the acts between the police officer and the detainees in such a setting as "just like between husband and wife".

    • According to women groups, the judge's determination was based on the illegal immigrants being married with children, did not resist the sexual acts, had no physical injuries, voluntarily shed their clothes, and had delayed lodging their reports.

    If this is true, the judge's reasoning is faulty. Being married with children is totally irrelevant. The insinuation here that a married woman with children is more sexually experienced than an unmarried one without children and being more sexually experienced is hence more likely to be sexually cavalier in having a go with the police cons table in police station is factually wrong and non sequitor (does not follow). It calls in question the judge's mind-set.

    The more important issue to address is why the detainees did not resist, voluntarily shed their clothes, had no physical injuries, and had delayed lodging their reports. These might have been relevant if consent of a woman (in a rape case) is based solely on whether she was physically forced and restrained against her will by actual, or the threat of bodily harm, but it is not ( Define 'consent' in rape cases, say lawyers ).

    The inference of consent by the women's seemingly voluntary acts may be vitiated if such 'consent' was obtained by putting fear in the women that they would be subject to harsh treatment and consequences of prolonged incarceration, deprivation, torturous interrogation, etc under our tough immigration laws if they did not 'consent' to sex. These threats are sufficient to cause them to ingratiate the officer and accept his advances just so to avert these consequences.

    The judge should address the question whether this had been the case, especially when power relations between the constable and the detainees were vastly unequal, rather than summarily dismiss the entire episode as consensual sex. If he did not caution himself the necessity to evaluate the presence or absence of consent along the suggested lines, the decision ought to be unsupportable in law.

    The one who formulated the prosecution charge should bear part of the blame. Razali Pilen should have two charges preferred against him, one for rape, and the alternative of abuse of power, if the first was not made out because abuse of power, there surely was, as in the other well-publicised case involving a 13-year-old Filipina minor ( Investigators in Manila to interview Filipina girl ).

    Illegal immigrants without proper papers faced with strict laws imposing whipping and jail are most vulnerable to be preyed upon by some unscrupulous officers who take advantage by demanding payment in cash or sexual services. Other times, they take law into their own hands, not only in interrogation methods ( beating to extract confessions) as in Inquest: Mother says son handcuffed hours before death , but also when they go out on target practice (euphemistically described as hantam babi ) of suspected or known criminals based on report or tip of informants.

    Although a larger culture of corruption and abuse of power reinforces further such attitudes among the black sheep of law enforcement, the more urgent problem for the government to address is the upgrading of standards among those in law enforcement, and the judiciary. As long as standards come a poor second to other considerations, problems of this nature will persist, and even grow.