The Malaysian Human Rights or Suhakam commissioners will no longer meet directly with complainants or accept memorandums, said the commission's deputy chairperson Harun Hashim.

According to Harun, these tasks will be handed by the commission's officials in an effort to save time and ensure efficiency.

"It saves more time and is more efficient. Rather than spending half-an-hour listening to speeches, the commissioners could be doing their work. A single commissioner cannot make a statement and just commit the entire commission.

"So now the complainants can just file their memorandums and grouses with the secretariat and from there it will be brought up to the commission," he told malaysiakini yesterday.

However, the deputy chairperson refused to say when the new ruling came into effect.

Yesterday, a group of university students voiced their displeasure for not being able to meet any of the commissioners to follow up on their protest memorandum handed to Suhakam last month on the government's 'restrictive' Akujanji (good conduct pledge).

On July 1, the family of a 20-year-old youth who died while in police custody walked out from the Suhakam office when none of the commissioners were present to accept their memorandum calling for an inquiry into the death.

Will not distance complainants

Despite this, Harun insisted that the new ruling would not distance complainants from the commission.

"I don't think that would happen as we would see people all the time when we are doing our follow-ups and inquiries," he said.

"We also had situations where just because two or three commissioners were polite and received a petition they were sued," he added.

In April, a RM50 million lawsuit was filed against Suhakam by victims of last March's Petaling Jaya Selatan racial violence over the commission's alleged failure to launch a public inquiry into the matter.

Suhakam then filed an application to strike out the suit and the matter will be heard at the Kuala Lumpur high court next month.

The commission was asked to probe the incident — better known as the Kampung Medan tragedy which left six killed and scores of others injured — following allegations that the violence was premeditated and police had failed to contain it.

Meanwhile, asked if there is a possibility that complainants could meet with commissioners if they were present at the Suhakam headquarters, Harun replied: "There is of course a possibility but that should not be a standing rule".

He added that the complaints would be brought up to the pertinent working groups in the commission and then passed on to other members of Suhakam.

Formed in 1999, Suhakam has 13 commissioners comprising mainly of former high-ranking civil servants.