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 The Bar Council welcomes the announcement of the Honourable Chief Justice, Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Abdullah that a 24-hour magistrate’s court system for weekends and public holidays will be implemented nationwide early next year. This move will ensure that the law is applied uniformly whereby suspects will no longer be left in police lock-ups for more than 24 hours over the weekends and public holidays while waiting to be produced in court.

The Bar Council appreciates the Chief Justice’s pro-active stance in the matter. In support of the Chief Justice’s direction, the Bar Council calls on police authorities to allow arrestees to inform relatives at the first available opportunity of their arrest. This is to ensure that they are able to contact and retain legal counsel who can then be present at the remand proceeding held later. The opportunity to make such a phone call becomes all the more imperative where legal counsel may not be as easily or directly contactable on weekends and public holidays as they are on normal working days.

The Bar Council hopes that the implementation of the 24-hour court system will be but one of many positive steps made in the future to improve or reform the application of current criminal procedures in real-life situations.