Upgrade and it will no longer be toothless, says Ramdas

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KUALA LUMPUR: Upgrade Suha-kam to a constitutional institution to give it status and teeth, urged former Hakam president Ramdas Tikamdas.

“That would give it better status than it has now as a creature of statute,” he said in his closing remarks at the Malaysian Human Rights Day conference here yesterday.

In an interview later, he explained that by upgrading Suhakam to a commission under the Federal Consti-tution, “Parliament won’t be able to play around with it so easily”.

“The Government won’t be able to treat it with the indifference it does now,” he said. “Take the Election and Police commissions - they are not toothless; they make recommendations and have enforcement powers.”

Earlier, he said that if the nation could not even guarantee its future generation the right to equality and freedom of expression after 50 years of independence, “it is an open question as to the direction for the future of 1Malaysia”.

Andrew Khoo, co-chairman of the Bar Council’s Human Rights Comm-ittee, said there was a need for a mindset change in the way human rights laws were drafted and enacted, as well as implemented by prosecutors and the police.

“Judicial attitudes must also change,” he said. “Judges must move away from conservatism and breathe new life into the fundamental liberties enshrined in the Constitution,” he added.

Malaysiakini editor-in-chief Stevan Gan said Suhakam had done quite a bit for press freedom, but accomplished little in furthering it.

He said its greatest failure was not being able to make the Government accede to its requests, and added that it could not remain silent when the Government treated its recommendations with such contempt.

In relation to conversion to Islam, International Islamic University Ad-junct Prof Dr Mehrun Siraj called for State Syariah enactments to include a provision requiring the Registrar of Converts to obtain the consent of the other parent when only one comes in to convert the children of the marriage.

She also called for a provision prohibiting Syariah courts from making decisions that affect the rights of non-Muslims generally, and in relation to the custody of the children, specifically.