Day: May 9, 2017

EC not helping to clean up electoral roll but making it worse! — Bersih 2.0

Coordinator

Statement dated 9 May 2017

The Election Commission has started displaying the draft supplementary electoral roll for the first quarter of the year (Q1 2017).

This will be the first time that the EC is not giving political parties the soft copy of the drafts; nor would political parties be able to buy the hard copy.

The EC did not give any reason for its decision, merely saying that it suffices for interested parties to view the rolls at the 960 designated places across the country.

BERSIH 2.0 disagrees and disputes this as political parties – who have the most at stake in this process – have only 10 days of working hours starting today till 22 May to sift through some 500 pages of one parliamentary constituency with an average of 1,500 names, to make sure that all is in order. And they will need to go through the draft supplementary rolls for all 222 parliamentary constituencies. Read more →

Parliament must restore judicial power to courts, says Malaysian Bar

Coordinator

Source: FMT News

In applauding a Federal Court ruling that Parliament cannot undermine the doctrine of separation of powers, the Bar says the Judiciary must check and balance any excesses of the executive or legislature. Pic from FMT News.

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Bar has urged the government to give effect to a recent Federal Court ruling that judicial power remains in the hands of the court.

“The Bar reiterates our call upon the government to restore Article 121(1) to its original form, in order to bring the Federal Constitution in line with the Semenyih Jaya decision,” its president George Varughese (pic) said in a statement.

He said this in response to the landmark judgment by the Federal Court in Semenyih Jaya Sdn Bhd v Pentadbir Tanah Daerah Hulu Langat & Another delivered on April 20.

A five-man bench unanimously held that Parliament does not have the power to amend the Federal Constitution to the effect of undermining the doctrine of separation of powers and the independence of the Judiciary, despite the amendment to Article 121(1) done in 1988. Read more →

Detained Turkish men to meet lawyers and families

Coordinator

Source: FMT News

Lawyer for Turgay Karaman and Ismet Ozcelik, arrested under Sosma, says he will meet them before family are given some time with the detainees. Ismet Ozcelik (left) and Turgay Karaman. Pic from FMT News.

PETALING JAYA: Turkish citizens Turgay Karaman, Ihsan Aslan and Ismet Ozcelik, who were arrested by the police last week, will get to see their families today.

According to their lawyers, the police had granted them a meeting with Karaman, Ozcelik and Aslan in Bukit Aman police headquarters this morning.

“The families were also told to be at Bukit Aman at 11.30am, though the police said the families will only get to see the detainees at 2pm,” said Rosli Dahlan, who represents Karaman and Ozcelik.

Aslan’s wife, Ainnurul Aisyah Yunos Ali Maricar, said she was grateful and excited over the opportunity to meet with her husband. Read more →

Activists slam MCMC for forcing censorship on social media

Coordinator

Source: FMT News

NGO Article 19 wants Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to retract advisory to ‘group admins’ on chat group dos and dont’s, and tell users they won’t be held responsible for content posted by others. Pic from FMT News.

KUALA LUMPUR: An organisation fighting for freedom of expression has taken Malaysia’s internet authority to task over its recent “advisory” to administrators of social media groups, saying it was an attempt at getting users to act as censors for the government.

The Malaysian chapter of rights group Article 19, named after Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) should retract the advisory immediately.

It also wants MCMC to tell social media users that they cannot be held responsible for content created by third parties.

The NGO said in a statement that it considered the MCMC advisory as “seeking to deliver an implicit threat to social media users”. Read more →