Petaling Jaya 13/08/2015 - Forum “Section 124B: An affront to parliamentary democracy”
Many of those recently investigated under a law on activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy are actually doing work that is aimed at improving the country’s political system, speaker at a forum last night said.
These included anti-graft investigators and journalists who are probing and exposing wrongdoing at the highest levels of government so that citizens are well-informed of what their politicians are doing, said law professor Dr Azmi Sharom.
“In a parliamentary democracy people vote in their leaders. When someone exposes wrongdoing by the government, the people will be better informed when they go to vote.
“So if this is good for parliamentary democracy, then why are they being detained for ‘acts detrimental to parliamentary democracy'?” said Azmi, who was a speaker at the forum titled, “Section 124B: An affront to parliamentary democracy”, last night.
Azmi was referring to the recent arrests of Putrajaya’s critics, which includes politicians and activists, over the past month under the new Section 124B of the Penal Code.
Section 124B states that anyone carrying out, by any means, directly or indirectly, any “activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy” can be jailed up to 20 years if convicted.
Among some of those being investigated under Section 124B are activists in the Bersih 4 rally and parliamentarians who have been vocal over the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) financial scandal.
Several Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers had also been investigated under Section 124B for supposedly leaking information related to several probes into 1MDB.
