THE Institutional Reforms Committee (IRC) has received submissions from 23 other institutions and is in the midst of preparing an additional report to be submitted to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

IRC member Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi told The Malaysian Insight it had submitted its “Report of the Institutional Reform Committee” to the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP) recently, after two months of meeting various stakeholders.

“The challenge now is that we have about 23 other institutions which have submitted their presentations to us. Do we ignore these? Or do we work some more?

“We are preparing a supplementary report and will send it to the prime minster with additional topics that we have done some work on,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Shad said the members of the committee met Dr Mahathir but no time frame was set to when the prime minister will get back to the committee on the matter. 

“He told us he will get back to us after he had consulted his colleagues. So now it is in his hands,” said Shad. 

When asked if the reforms involved taking actions on any individual connected to the institutions, he said there are procedures to be followed.

“Don’t forget that when it comes to individuals, some of them have security of tenure that is protected by the constitution.

“If the government wants to remove them, it has to follow procedures.”

Shad added that the committee is not involved in deciding which individuals will be dismissed or appointed but they provide opinions when asked. 

In the report submitted to CEP, it examined several areas of reforms – namely Parliament, elections, the judiciary, law officers and legal service, anti-corruption, police and immigration, communications, media and information, as well as human rights institutions and law.

Besides Shad, the other members of the committee include former Court of Appeal judge KC Vohrah who is the chairman, Suhakam commissioner and former Court of Appeal judge Mah Weng Kwai, National Patriots Association president Brig-Gen (rtd) Mohamed Arshad Raji and the National Human Rights Society president S. Ambiga. – July 30, 2018.