The Bar Council today urged the government to withdraw the Special Complaints Commission (SCC) Bill and replace it with an independent mechanism that would deal with complaints of police corruption and misconduct.

The SCC, which was tabled for first reading in the Dewan Rakyat last Thursday, has been panned by its critics as being a fraudulent version of the much-anticipated Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).

The setting up of the IPCMC is a major proposal made by the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police in 2005. The proposed commission was to have been established by May 2006.

“Given that, the Bar Council is extremely disappointed not only that the IPCMC in substantially the form proposed by the commission has not seen the light of day, but in its place a SSC Bill 2007 is being rushed through parliament without proper consultation with civil society,” said Bar Council’s vice chairperson K Ragunath today.

The Malaysian Bar represents about 13,000 lawyers in Peninsular Malaysia.

He added that although the new bill covered a range of enforcement officers not limited to the police force, the proposed commission still appeared to be “wholly inadequate in terms of its ambit of reference and the powers vested in it”.

Ragunath said that the SCC will have to rely in existing internal disciplinary and enforcement authorities in its work.

“It is precisely because the present internal systems are weak and non-effective that the nation needs an external oversight body which will independently carry out its work,” he said in a statement.

“The SCC will not have any power to prosecute or punish, and will again have to rely on the existing authorities to do so. The position will, therefore, be back to square one,” he added.

He also said that the SCC will only add another layer of bureaucracy in the government’s machinery, as its work will primarily be in referring cases to the appropriate existing authorities for action.

“The SCC will largely be a superfluous body. Its work will only add to the costs, inconvenience and time for the complainants, the persons who are the subject of the complaint, and the respective authorities.”

The government should withdraw the SCC Bill, he said, adding that a consultation meeting should be held with all interested parties in order to establish an independent and effective mechanism with an external oversight.

A total mockery

The sudden tabling of the SCC has come under fire from various quarters. Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang called the bill a watered-down version of the IPCMC.

“Most unfortunately, the SCC is a completely different animal from one conceived and recommended by the royal commission.

“In fact, it makes a total mockery of the IPCMC proposal as to warrant the SCC bill to be billed as a fraudulent IPCMC,” he said on Saturday.

In its 2005 report, the royal commission had attached the draft IPCMC bill formulated by the commissioners which included legal experts and former judges.

The commission was chaired by former chief justice Mohammad Dzaiddin Abdullah and his commissioners included former inspector-general of police Hanif Omar.