00:10hello and good evening i'm melissa idris welcome to consider this this is the show where we want
00:15you to consider and then we consider what you know of the news of the day Malaysia is on
00:20verge of a major constitutional reform the constitution amendment number two bill 2026
00:27it will soon be tabled for its second reading in parliament and in this amendment it proposes
00:32separating the role of the attorney general and the public prosecutor now the move is intended to
00:40strengthen prosecutorial dependence and public confidence in the criminal justice system
00:45however we have civil society warning us that the proposed changes may not go far enough to ensure
00:53that the public prosecutor is insulated from executive influence as parliament prepares to
01:00debate the bill the question is will this reform deliver prosecutorial independence or will it
01:06simply create the appearance of it well joining me on the show to discuss this further is pushman
01:11Murugaya who is the CEO of C4 which is the center to combat corruption and cronyism pushman good to have
01:17you back on the show if I may begin our conversation by having you kind of explain very briefly to
01:22us
01:23or to those who may not be um who may not know why has the attorney general and the um
01:30public
01:31prosecutor's role be combined so one is as legal advices to the government and the other is public
01:37prosecutor why why is having the two the same role seen as problematic okay uh thank you so much for
01:43inviting me again um so maybe just to contextualize the conversation was going forward we first we need to
01:50look at the position now which is basically the fused position of the attorney general and the public
01:57prosecutor now under the constitution the attorney general is an ex-officio and holds the position of
02:04the public prosecutor now we need to understand there are two dividing roles that they play one technically the
02:11attorney general or we call ag basically he's the advisor to the current or standing government so for
02:18example issues bilateral trade uh conflicts uh legal issues those uh things will is where the ag plays a
02:27role in advising the government what they can do what are legal provisions now that is apart from the pp
02:34the public prosecutor role is basically dealing with uh prosecution of technical or criminal cases
02:42so you have a very wide separation of function but the problem is when they fuse together and ag being
02:50the public prosecutor ex-officio means that he also controls under the constitution which cases to be
02:58prosecuted which cases to be given dna which cases to be pulled back so it gives him very wide power
03:04and the
03:05concern is not so much this structure but the structure that links back to the attorney general
03:10because the attorney general is appointed by the prime minister so in that structure itself it creates
03:19that linkages to the executive in that context any decision that made by the public prosecutor
03:26defector actually is the ag decision in that sense as well when there are cases that
03:32appear to be selectively prosecuted then you create that perception where the rules are not applied
03:39properly so that is the reason why civil society has always been calling for a separation of the road
03:44and ensuring the pp now is free from any of those influences but not forgetting the powers that the pp has
03:52very
03:52strong even they are free they also need to be accountable right to at least to parliament so that's in
03:57a
03:58nutshell yeah all right well civil society yes have long been calling for this but c4 specifically
04:04for as long as I can remember has been pushing for this so why isn't this bill um up to
04:12mark why
04:12doesn't it seem to be the meaningful reform um that it is touted to be okay of course p4 has
04:19always been
04:20pushing it simply because the reason I mentioned earlier and also there's the recent cases for example
04:25again zaid hamidi case you actually have a primal facing case then he stopped to become a dna and then
04:31become nfa so these are decisions that create extremely uh doubt in terms of how the justice system
04:39works so hence we were calling for it now in this context yes it's a good initiative we're going to
04:45have
04:45a separation of pp and g but again it may sound cliche always goes down to the details of the
04:52particular act now in the instances in this act that actually creates a lot of potentially future
04:59problems that we might face now maybe very quickly i can explain the fact that the current structure is
05:07where the age is appointed by the prime minister now the same structure now would actually be applied where
05:13is transferred to another individual so the question now is who is the individual and the individual
05:20actually is the king who is in the petuan agong so now we also need to also understand when we call for
05:26the
05:26independence of institutions we're calling for the independence from the executive now we also need
05:33to understand that the king is the head of the government technically or even under the constitution he is
05:41part of the executive so the purpose of now shifting um the roles away from executive does not come into
05:50play because you're limiting within the executive as well as you're shifting from the prime minister to
05:56the king and in that instance there are also other repercussions that we don't want to punish the
06:01institution of the king because they will now get sucked into political play conversations
06:08prosecution so I mean those are concerns that we actually have there are a few more but I think
06:13those are more i suppose more detail more technical terms to explain but these are the main ones the
06:19appointment process itself okay well then pushman talked to me about how um how to avoid that so if
06:27the idea of ​​the bill is really to ensure that the public prosecutor is truly independent it's um
06:35uh um insulated from any influence what what would you what would recommend that what would be the
06:42proposal to address that yes currently the proposal under the act is using a commission uh existing
06:49commission to submit names to the king simplify the process this is the current one under the bill what
06:56we are proposing is in that dual process let's have a tripod type process meaning now we bring in the
07:04public chamber into the process where the voice of the public is in that chamber so now what we do
07:12with suggesting this the committee or the commission can actually recommend three or four names and that
07:17names can be now given to that uh select committee or committee created by parliament by partisan hopefully is
07:24led by opposition to actually look at the names and they only have the right to veto it so we
07:31don't
07:31allow even the politicians to play a role in getting the names in there so they only allow to veto
07:36so
07:37once they have got a name that they agree upon then their name goes to the king for his signature
07:43so again
07:43it creates that ceremonial position and it keeps the institution isolated from nonsense and all these
07:49political issues but gets the public chambers involved in the process of appointing a very powerful person
07:58and needs to be really accountable to the public okay so so another layer of i guess transparency
08:05and a check and balance why is this important help us understand bushman if what are the risks at play
08:12here if the public prosecutor is not seen to be genuinely independent especially um you know using i guess the
08:22historical cases in this respect so i mean now the only issue now is this you are actually shifting
08:29the responsibility or the process from one individual to another individual now the issue now is
08:35how do you now not avoid the same criticism you have in the previous structure which is again uh
08:45potentially influencing a decision selective prosecution maybe the the the individuals that
08:52are being uh selected positive will be different in groups groupings as well you cannot decide to see so
08:58you will have the same problem the same criticism layered against a new system a new process but more
09:05importantly now those criticisms will be layered into one of our highest institutions which is
09:11supposed to be insulated against all political chaos politicking and all that so now you're bringing
09:19that institution into a play that people now will command and the opportunity to embarrass the royalties
09:26become very high so I think that is a major consideration for us not to have the same process where
09:34we put in
09:35a public chamber a public chamber to actually iron out the whole process through a public chamber
09:40public voice transparency and also it allows us to bring a mechanism of accountability back into parliament
09:49right so so what what has been so after the first um reading of this bill I'm sure civil society
09:56special
09:56uh you know put their brains together and also went out to talk to um lawmakers and members of
10:04parliament
10:05what are you hearing from them are they receptive to some of the concerns that you're raising i'm
10:09wondering if there is still an opportunity for parliament to strengthen this bill before it's passed
10:16have only had a few days of sitting left in day one right yet so what's been the feedback
10:21that you are
10:21hearing pushburn yeah i think a civil society at least a small group of us has begun to actually
10:26start lobbying uh ministers not so many ministers more mps and backbenchers but i think what has
10:32happened now is we have been having conversations with a number of MPs we have been doing a couple of
10:36briefings to a few commissions and also our own uh appgm all-party parliamentary group as well
10:42and we also helped us to serve some meetings here and there so what we have said out there is
10:47basically the
10:47main issue now is the time frame we have to actually make changes and what we are pushing
10:53for now is for that bill to be referred back to the committee special committee so that they can
10:58actually amend and make specific changes to improve the bill don't misunderstand civil society still wants
11:04the ag and pp separation that's for sure but again we must have a bill that actually reflects the spirit
11:10of the intention behind why you wanted to be separated so our hope and I think the opportunity
11:16now is to get uh that committee the special committee or select committee to actually to
11:20go through the bill strengthen it make it clean up get engagement from academics from us from our
11:26civil societies from the business community get them to put input and then clean up the bill
11:32and then you'll restore it for second or third so that can go up in June July there's no
11:37harm we've been for so many years so many there's no harm in another few more months okay we cannot
11:43have
11:43the same problem we have the government procurement bill going through in three days with this bill
11:48that actually has a significant because it's a constitutional amendment it's not a simple majority
11:55it's affecting us for the rest of our lives after this bushman thank you so much for being on the show
12:01with
12:01me today that was pushed by murugaya from c4 we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back
12:05with
12:06more on this in just a couple of minutes stay tuned to consider this
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