MANY times in the past, relevant parties within the legislative have discussed the intention to abolish preventive laws.

The police kept insisting that they will be crippled in the war against terrorism. This is not totally accurate. The remedial recourse to soften the blow when removing preventive laws is to enhance all the tools of investigations by giving more investigative powers to the police.

It still means that all these powers will at all times be accountable to the criminal justice system by being subservient to due process, rather than to politicians with their vested interests.

A Serious Crimes Act was once mooted, giving almost similar preventive powers to the police with greater length of time for further detention.

The courts in this instance were to play a pivotal role in the checks and balances to possible abuse. It sought to combine the need to give police just enough power to investigate thoroughly, with further detention not longer than necessary.

Credible evidence was the main objective. This exercise evaporated as keeping the preventive laws were easier and it also implied that the executive were reluctant to let go their administrative influence over the police.

It has now become imperative that these draconian laws be abolished and replaced with laws which will cater to serious and terrorist-related offences made accountable to the criminal justice system at the outset of investigations.

The courts and not the Home Ministry must play a more significant role.

We must not forget the dark period of how the police was pitted against the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission at the height of the executive wanting to suppress all reports and investigations. There were those who lodged reports against 1MDB, detained under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) as economic saboteurs.

The police labelled them as threats to national security at the time. Even a former MACC chief, by his own admission, went into hiding to avoid being arrested.

However, this has yet to be verified and his allegations should have been clarified in an official inquiry. The rogue officers who sought to protect the 1MDB perpetrators at the material time should have been identified and prosecuted.

Preventive laws have a long history in our country of being used to suppress the people for political ends. It goes back to the time when the British were our colonial masters and sadly we are still mired in the quicksand of their oppressive rule.

It is imperative now that we study ways to reduce the political clout of our executive, over the police.

The police without being totally subservient to the executive will definitely become the bastion in making the rule of law supreme without fear or favour and in calling a spade a spade. – October 16, 2019.

* G. Selva reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.