Several provisions in the Malaysian laws must be amended or even deleted to provide better protection for whistleblowers, said human rights lawyer Eric Paulsen.

Speaking at the Anti-Corruption Summit 2018 today, he told the audience that the government should do this if they are really serious in eradicating graft in the country.

Paulsen said the laws that should be amended are Section 6, Section 8(4) and Section 11(d) of the Whistleblower Protection Act (WBPA) 2010, and Section 203 of the Penal Code.

"There is a couple of provisions that need to be seriously amended. I just want to touch on three.

"(One of them) is Section 6 (of WBPA) on the disclosure of improper conduct. This whistleblower protection would not be available if it was prohibited (for the informant to disclose such information) by any given law. So that has to go," he said.

Under that section, it was stipulated that one can make a disclosure on improper conduct as long as it is not prohibited by any written law.

Paulsen said Section 8(4) of the same act, meanwhile, makes it an offence for a whistleblower to disclose information on a wrongdoing to another party when it was under investigation.

"The moment a whistleblower invokes this procedure, and later on if he sees that no action had been taken and he decides to disclose it to a member of Parliament (for example), it would contravene Section 8(1), whereby he can be fined RM50,000 and imprisonment not exceeding 10 years.

"And lastly, Section 11(d) states that whistleblower protection could be revoked if the disclosure of improper conduct principally involves questioning the merits of government policy, including the policy of a public body.

"This, of course, is incompatible with the purpose we have WBPA. Corruption happens behind closed doors, and they might include government policies. We cannot have that particular provision," he said.

On the Penal Code provision, Paulsen dismissed it as a law that "doesn't make sense", as it makes it an offence for a public servant to disclose any information derived in the course of his duty as a public servant.

The legal director of Fortify Rights was one of three panelists at the concurrent session entitled "The need for better protection for whistleblowers for Malaysia Baru".

The other panelists include Ideas board member Christopher Leong and Mercer Malaysia CEO Hasham Esmail Piperdy.