Criticisms of Putrajaya’s Covid-19 control order are fair.

Since the prime minister referred to the Prevention and Control of Infectious Disease Act 1988 (PCIDA) in his announcement on Monday night, from the legal standpoint, two things must follow:

1. A declaration of infected local area/s by an order in the gazette as provided by section 11(1) PCIDA.

2. The measures as announced by the PM to be made into regulations as provided by section 11(2) PCIDA.

The first was duly carried out and the order published the following day (March 17) vide the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases (Declaration of Infected Local Areas) Order 2020 [PU(A) 87/2020].

However, the second wasn’t to be until late Wednesday morning (March 18).

The measures are now regulated as the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases (Measures Within the Infected Local Areas) Regulations 2020 [PU(A) 91/2020].

Needless to say, as seen and reported widely, panic ensued on Tuesday night.

The nation saw balik kampung scenes like those on eves of festivals or long weekends.

Crowds gathered at bus terminals and, for once, at police stations to apply for interstate travel permits, only for the inspector-general of police to retract his order.

Rightly, concerns were raised that the exodus from the Klang Valley, where most of the Covid-19 cases are, would only help to spread the disease further.

The country’s leadership, past and present, must now stand up to the blunt criticism that it has failed to learn from the experiences of, and measures taken by, other countries.

When the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Singapore began in late February 2003, the republic’s key legal responses included amending the principal legislation, the Infectious Diseases Act (IDA), which is similar in its legislative purpose to the PCIDA.

The amendments gave additional powers to the Health Ministry to take action against persons who breached home quarantine orders (HQOs), refused to co-operate with health officers to take SARS control measures, wilfully hid medical information related to SARS control, or failed to comply with any directives or regulations related to SARS control.

Violators would be levied composition fines of up to S$5,000, instead of being charged in court.

Furthermore, the general penalty for committing an offence would be doubled, to a maximum of S$10,000 or 6 months’ imprisonment for a first offence, and S$20,000 or 12 months for a repeat offence.

The amendments were made on a Certificate of Urgency within days of the start of the outbreak (February 28, 2003).

Further amendments came in less than two months later (April 24, 2003).

Given the scare and the experience, the IDA was further looked at with amendments proposed in late 2017 and passed in early 2008.

These were part of continual efforts to improve the measures to prevent and control the spread and importation of infectious diseases in three key areas: (a) enhancing surveillance of infectious diseases; (b) preventing the introduction of infectious diseases into the republic; and (c) strengthening infectious disease control within the republic.

In stark contrast, the PCIDA has remained the same since its enactment in 1988, except for the amendments to the first schedule to add to the list of infectious diseases.

Even so, to date Covid-19 has not been added to the first schedule despite its official name being announced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on February 11.

This is rather curious because Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coranavirus (MERS-CoV) was listed in 2016.

Covid-19 has been listed as an infectious disease and a dangerous infectious disease under the IDA.

In all honesty, the PCIDA as the principal legislation that provides for the prevention and control of infectious diseases in Malaysia is outdated.

The country is ill-equipped from the legal standpoint to deal with existing and re-emerging infectious diseases, as well as safeguard public health against new and emerging infectious diseases.

The PCIDA does not even have quarantine regulations, even though section 14 makes provision for the isolation of “infested persons and suspects” in “quarantine stations”.

By comparison, regulations on quarantine were the first to be made under the IDA way back in 1977.

During the SARS outbreak, the Singapore authorities were pleasantly surprised and thankful that they had what they called “an old law” to regulate quarantine of “any person who is, or is suspected to be, a case or carrier or contact of an infectious disease”.

In the United Kingdom, legislation was already put in place when the Covid-19 outbreak reached Europe.

Made under a principal Act of Parliament – Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 – the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020 was laid before Parliament on February 10 and immediately came into force.

The regulation provides measures which “may reasonably be considered as an effective means of preventing the further, significant transmission of coronavirus”, recognising that “the incidence or transmission of coronavirus constitutes a serious and imminent threat to public health”.

Simply put, the UK has put in place legal measures even before the Covid-19 outbreak develops into a “serious and imminent threat to public health” and was announced as a pandemic by the WHO on March 11.

As for us, instead of doing the same, we got mired in political crisis.

All is not lost though. Section 11(2) PCIDA seems to be the saving provision. Read together with section 31 PCIDA, the Minister of Health is empowered to make additional measures by way of regulation and this can be done quickly.

As such, provisions from Singapore’s IDA and the UK’s Regulation may be adopted as regulations under section 11(2) if they have been effective in preventing the further transmission of Covid-19.

This is one way, from the legal standpoint, we can “adjust, adapt and improve along the way as the pandemic evolves”.

So, our legal officers at the Attorney-General Chambers (AGC) must now count themselves as part of the nation’s frontline force to combat the pandemic.

We trust that they are “siap siaga” (ready) to be at the service of the nation.

* Hafiz Hassan 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.