The nude-squat commission is praised for the recommendations contained in its report. But will the public see any changes?

Lim Kit Siang, Parliamentary Opposition Leader

It is an indictment on the police leadership that seven months after the submission of the first Dzaiddin Royal Police Commission Report and its 125 recommendations to create a clean, efficient, professional and world-class police service, a second Dzaiddin royal commission on the police nude ear-squat scandal had not found any significant improvement towards the creation of a police culture which is more effective, responsibility-driven and human rights-sensitive.

The second Dzaiddin royal commission's indictment of the police leadership and culture is fully vindicated by the indifferent police response to the Squatgate commission report and recommendations.

The police has so far given a vague and meaningless response to the Squatgate commission report. Deputy Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan said on Thursday that the police was reviewing its procedures but declined to comment if nude ear-squats would be abolished.

Such an attitude makes nonsense of the Squatgate commission's first recommendation for the 'immediate discontinuance' of the police nude ear-squats, raising the question whether the second commission's report would be acted on seriously.

I call on the police to break its week-long silence and declare its stand on the squatgate commission's recommendation for immediate discontinuation of nude ear-squats for detainees in police custody.

Yeo Yang Poh, Bar Council chairperson

The findings of the commission are very telling. For example, it found that the relevant part, that nude squats are indiscriminately practised by the police. It also found that method to be improper and a violation of human rights. It is a very important finding.

They also found that there is a lack of transparency and accountability in the police. These are very telling findings.

As far as their recommendations are concerned, we are in full support of them. They are all important, but we would like to highlight one of the recommendations, which is to expedite the establishment of the IPCMC (Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission). This IPCMC was recommended by the earlier commission. Now this recommendation has been repeated by the ear squat commission. Therefore, the Bar Council urges the government to set up the ICPMC without further delay. This is something that can not only provide a check balance on police power, it will also help nurture a culture or environment where the police themselves will exercise reasonable self-restraint when carrying out their duties.

(Proposals to amend the Criminal Procedure Code), these are sound proposals which will be an improvement to the present edition. Definition has to be redefined. Of course, you cannot have an exhaustive and comprehensive definition of words such as decency.

On the police's resistence to change, this is something we would like to highlight, and we agree with the commission, and we would like to urge the police to drop their resistence, even at the subconscious level, and instead welcome this reform because this is the only way in time to come, they can regain the trust, confidence and respect of the people in the police force.

Yap Swee Seng, Suaram executive-director

I think the commission has made some good recommendations but we want to stress that the recommendations should be implemented by the government because in the past, there had been a royal commission and they came up with 125 recommendations. Until now, we don't really know the status of implementation of all the recommendations, including the IPCMC.

So we are a bit concerned whether the recommendations of this report will be implemented by the government, because it requires a lot of political will. If we judge from the previous report of the Royal Commission and also recommendations made by Suhakam (Malaysian Human Rights Commission), a lot of the recommendations were not implemented, including the abolishing of the practice of nude squats.

It was already proposed by Suhakam in 2000, and they set up the inquiry into the Kesas Highway demonstration. At that time, this lady called Nora was subjected to a similar kind of nude squat punishment. Suhakam at that time had already recommended that it should be abolished and should not be practised. But the problem is all these recommendations were not taken seriously by the government.

Will this be another waste of tax payers money and defeat the purpose of setting up the royal commission?

On the nude squat practices, we want to call the police to immediately abolish all standing orders or circulars that prescribe such practices.

We also welcome the recommendations of the commission in the sense that strip searches should get a search warrant from the court. This is important in institutionalising a check and balance on police practices, so if police want to search a person or do a strip search, they have to provide reasonable grounds to the court for such a search.

It's really important to get the police to have a human rights perspective into their work and they have to abide by international human rights standards so that when they conduct their duties, they won't encroach into the basic rights of the people and also undermining their dignity.

Joseph Roy Benedict, Amnesty International Malaysia executive-director

AI welcomes the findings of the inquiry. We believe these recommendations re-emphasise the core principles underpinned in the 2005 findings of the Royal Commission report, namely that policing should be based on respect for human rights.

We call for the speedy implementation of the recommendations of both the commissions. In particular, we want to re-emphasise the call for the implementation of the IPMC without further delay.

We call for the ethical code of conduct for body searches that has been recommended to be drafted as soon as possible and be disseminated and made accessible to the public. Not just this code, but any other code that needs to be developed, such as the code of conduct for arrest and detention, all these codes need to be drafted and made accessible. We believe that if these steps are taken, public confidence in the police will improve.

(Scanning equipment), ideally, if we have the technology to search persons without stripping them, then it should be applied as soon as possible. We welcome techniques like that.

(Change of mind-set), the culture of the police has to change. This call must go to the senior police leadership and they must show the will to change and take on the recommendations and make the necessary changes.

An independent commission can give you an external oversight, but what is more important is internal police accountability. There must be a system of effective chain of command and responsibility so that supervising officers can discuss their duties and report breaches of procedure. An independent commission can do so much. It calls for an internal system of police accountability.

(Amendments to the CPC), we welcome and support any amendments that would incorporate respect for human rights. We need to be clear about it.