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‘Universiti Malaya should respect the rule of law’

For the past two weeks, I have been receiving updates on how Universiti Malaya (UM) conducts its business. By ‘business’, I mean students are the clients and the UM Student Affairs Division (HEP) is the education service provider.

Before this, UM found four students guilty for participating in the peaceful Tangkap MO1 rally nearby Dataran Merdeka. They were punished heavily, including suspensions, stern warnings and fine of RM400 each. Now, UM issues disciplinary proceeding notices to four other students who showed placards at the ending of the townhall meeting on 1MDB held in UM.

These punishments and actions infringe students’ right to fundamental liberties. The first four cases violated students’ right to peaceful assembly; the second four cases infringed their right to freedom of expression.

Interestingly, when President Barack Obama visited UM, there were a few students who held up placards during the townhall event. Afterwards, the US ambassador to Malaysia issued a notice supporting and respecting the students’ freedom of speech and expression; and also, the US Embassy urged that these students not to be punished by UM. In the end, these students were not punished whatsoever. It was a relatively happy ending.

Besides students, Associate Prof Azmi Sharom was issued a show-cause letter over his participation in the peaceful Bersih 5 rally in KL. I think UM has totally forgotten that Suhakam issued a public notice which claimed that civil servants have the right to freedom of assembly.

Not only that, UM issued ‘reminders’ to all staff that they are not allowed to make oral or written public statements on government policies, nor can they comment a single bit on any statutory bodies.

Due to the budget cuts by the government, students are facing some real difficulties. The Tamil Society has to pay few hundred ringgit ‘rental fee’ to UM for holding its annual general meeting in a hall. The Chinese Society is facing the same issue, too. Chinese language debaters no longer enjoy free use of facilities in conducting their practice.

Of course, English language debaters are very well treated, they are the exceptions. Why? I have seen a debater travelling more than 10 countries across the globe for debate competitions but lost almost all of them. But she was still supported by UM to travel again and again, giving me the impression that UM seemingly has no other debaters. Well, maybe she is the only exception.

Let’s not digress too much, but why is UM charging their students rental fees for using UM facilities? It is ridiculous. And when the president of the Chinese Society confirmed this issue with the media, he was called up and admonished by HEP. Clearly, his freedom of speech and expression was suppressed.

These constant infringements of fundamental liberties are threats to rule of law. But UM staff, government officers, or anyone could say that these punishments or restrictions are imposed “according to the law”. This is how they say it:

“Oh, we have to punish them according to the law”

“According to the law, they cannot say anything to the media”

How convenient it is to dismiss any criticism by saying “according to the law”. Don’t they know obeying the law blindly and not observing the spirit of the constitution is nothing short of absurdity and foolishness?

The notion of ‘rule of law’ is far beyond the understanding of ‘obeying the law’. In fact, it can be said that over-emphasis on the ‘obey the law’ aspect of rule of law is a hallmark of a regime which is keen on using the law as a tool to constrain the governed rather than a mean to constrain the way it governs.

Ultimately, the question is, whether these warnings, punishments, restrictions were imposed according to the law or according to the executive? The answer is blindingly obvious.


MARCUS LEE is a final year law student at Universiti Malaya and is a student representative in the UM Students Council.

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