Race Relations Act

Disclaimer: This entry is purely speculative as the law isn’t available for public scrutiny yet.

I do not want to speculate over law that is not yet publicly available in writing. However, it does not bode well for our Race Relations Bill if, according to TheStar article, it is designed as one of the two laws to replace the Internal Security Act.

I applaud the minister for saying that, “Malaysia’s Race Relations Bill would be similar to the British law, including in barring discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, nationality and ethnicity in employment, provision of goods and services, education and public functions.” However, parts of the law would be void in so many ways due to Article 153 of our Consti, which enshrines racial discrimination.

  1. It shall be the responsibility of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to safeguard the special position of the Malays and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak and the legitimate interests of other communities in accordance with the provisions of this Article.
  2. Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, but subject to the provisions of Article 40 and of this Article, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong shall exercise his functions under this Constitution and federal law in such manner as may be necessary to safeguard the special provision of the Malays and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak and to ensure the reservation for Malays and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak of such proportion as he may deem reasonable of positions in the public service (other than the public service of a State) and of scholarships, exhibitions and other similar educational or training privileges or special facilities given or accorded by the Federal Government and, when any permit or licence for the operation of any trade or business is required by federal law, then, subject to the provisions of that law and this Article, of such permits and licences.

What I am unable to fathom though, is how the law would be able to replace the ISA. I am afraid that the government is being short-sighted again, and drafting a narrowly focused law that is designed to only tackle one situation or scenario only – that of people inciting racial tensions.

I’m beginning to appreciate how law can be constructive and destructive. My hope is that the law will be designed to promote inter-racial relations but from the way things have been going in Malaysia, it does not seem likely to happen. The law will most likely be used against people who incite racial tensions instead of promoting further integration.

You see, the law could be made to encourage the races to come together such as providing tax incentives for inter-racial marriages, further education opportunities for children of mixed parentage, housing discounts for mixed families, etc. However, I highly doubt that this is ever going to see the light of day.

I’m guessing that the law will seek to regulate behaviour. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there will now be a list of banned words that are considered derogatory and would constitute a race crime if uttered. I wouldn’t even be surprised to find religious elements creeping into the law as we have troubles separating the two in Malaysia.

I’d like to be hopeful but I’m too jaded to be so.

Khir Toyo Jailed?

I just read in the news that the former Selangor Menteri Besar has been sentenced to 12 months jail. According to the article, “Former Selangor menteri besar Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo was found guilty by the High Court here today on a charge of obtaining for himself and his wife a valuable property at a consideration he knew was insufficient, four years ago. He was sentenced to one year in jail from today. The court also ordered Khir’s land and bungalow be forfeited.”

With all due respect, I personally find this decision a little worrying.

If we are going to start forfeiting and jailing people for buying cheap properties in Malaysia, we’re going to get into trouble because as Malaysians, we all like to strike a good bargain. I personally know many people who have bought properties well below the market price because we like a good bargain.

We love our discounts, and our haggling and I would defend that as our cultural right!

If he had gotten it for free, that would be a totally different problem. The fact that he had paid a cool RM3.5 million for it (while it was supposedly worth RM6.5 million), that is a different issue. I don’t see what’s the problem with buying it cheap if it was done in a legal manner.

If the issue is that of insufficient consideration, then shouldn’t the peppercorn rule apply in this case? At most, the transaction could be considered void and the property returned to the seller. Forfeiture and jail time seems a little excessive to me.

I’m confused.

Criminal laws must work very differently from civil laws.

PS: Also, does this mean that he is disqualified to contest under Article 48 of the Consti since the law clearly states that someone can be disqualified from being an MP for a jail sentence that is no less than one year. I guess that a similar restriction applies to state’s assembly person.

Libel vs Slander

There is often confusion between the two main forms of defamation – libel and slander. The general perception is that slander is spoken while libel is written. The more accurate classification is that libel is in a permanent form (e.g. book, carving, video, painting, etc) while slander is in a non-permanent form (e.g. spoken words).

However, what I did not know before this is when can legal action be taken.

Libel is actionable per se meaning that the plaintiff can take legal action directly. This explains why local newspapers are so ambiguous when they comment on any story. They just won’t come out and say whom it is but would rather beat around the bush and give us readers a puzzle to solve.

Unfortunately, this is not necessarily defensible under the law either as the law does not require a person to be specifically named nor does it care about the use of pseudonyms or fake names. All it requires is that a person be identifiable by someone who knows him/her reasonably well.

Slander requires that the plaintiff prove that there are special damages. What this means is that it is generally more difficult to sue for slander than for libel. However, there are exceptions in several specific instances:

  • Claims that a woman is unchaste.
  • Claims that someone has some disease.
  • Claims that a person has committed a crime.
  • Claims that a person or business is unprofessional.

To make this list easy to memorise, I’m going to remember it as virgin, STI, rape, and prostitution. These slanders are actionable as they immediately affect the esteem that others might have towards a person, which is the principle thing that the law tries to protect – not one’s self-esteem.

What I don’t get is the virgin. It’s not actionable if someone claims that a man is not chaste but if the same claim is directed at a woman, it becomes slander. That’s extremely biased and unfair to say the least. It sends the wrong signal.

So, now I know.

How this relates to me is pretty simple – I blog a lot.

That means that I have to be careful about what I write on my blog as they are libel and actionable per se. It also means that I cannot claim that a professional is behaving unprofessionally as that would be actionable slander as well. Other than that, I’ll just need to be careful.