There are three tiers to the human rights agenda in Malaysia - the first tier: awareness, the second tier: advocacy/articulation and the third tier action - which compels us to progress beyond awareness. We should not rest easy at the first tier.

Whilst there are signs that we are progressing to the second tier, such progress is marked by many stops and starts, and the transition is expected to be an uneven and difficult one. The way to tackle any problem is to firstly identify and acknowledge it. At the moment, we have identified eight areas besetting your role in developing human rights in Malaysia.

1. Intensify lobbying of the government

Our immediate hope for the moment is that you will intensify your lobbying of the government to debate and act on your reports. Surely the intent of Parliament, when designating it your duty, pursuant to section 21 of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia Act (HRCMA), to submit reports to it, is for the reports to be digested, discussed, debated and acted upon, and not for them to lie abandoned in the August building, collecting dust.

You should personally and directly lobby government ministers or Members of Parliament to answer issues raised in your reports. It is insufficient to just write letters to them and expect a favourable reply. Just as rights do not fall into people's laps, your right for your report to be taken seriously must be claimed by you. NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and CSGs (civil society groups) can only provide support, you yourself must act on it first.

You should progress from merely issuing general statements on human rights to initiating high-level talks with policy-makers on what is needed to accomplish your human rights agenda. A viable strategy which you should adopt is to call for and hold regular roundtable dialogues and meetings with the government and its departments. This is to ensure constant communication and frequent access in, and effective monitoring of, the implementation of human rights in Malaysia.

We believe the Attorney-General's Chambers has now set up under its International Affairs Unit an International Unit III dealing specifically with human rights and international organisations. These dialogues and meetings should as much as possible, include various interested parties such as the Bar Council, NGOs and CSGs.