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The Bar Council regrets the statement of Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, Minister in the Prime Minister’s department which appeared in The Sun, 11 March 2002 that the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) can be used to detain those responsible for setting fire to the Dewan Sultan Iskandar of University Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in Skudai.

With the greatest of respect to the Honourable Minister, the Internal Security Act was meant not merely 'to prevent chaos'. The Bar Council has consistently pointed out that it has become increasingly difficult to justify the relevance of the ISA because its original purpose, ie to combat the Communist insurgency has long been obsolete. The lack of similarity between the threat to national security by Communist insurgents and the alleged arsonists in respect of the said UTM Dewan is abundantly clear.

While the Minister has correctly stated that the authorities should investigate the fire thoroughly to bring the culprits to justice and determine if a group was out to destroy government property and smear its image, the ISA cannot be invoked for the purpose of carrying out these police investigations. The police should conduct its investigations first, and then make a decision to charge the suspects for arson under the Penal Code. In any event, there are also ample provisions under the Criminal Procedure Code and other related laws to enable the authorities to arrest, remand and investigate alleged offenders. Such laws provide the necessary safeguards for due process. If the ISA is used to detain the suspected arsonists, then the suspects will be denied of their fundamental human right right of access to legal counsel, a basic right provided for in the Federal Constitution. The suspects will also be subject to preventive detention without trial for an indefinite period, a situation simply void of any justification.

The Bar Council therefore takes this opportunity to call for the immediate repeal of the ISA. The ISA cannot continue to remain as the legal instrument by which suspects for crimes alleged to be a 'threat to national security' are arrested in order for investigations to take place. This call is consistent with judicial observations that abuses under the ISA must be prevented or minimised.

The Bar Council deeply regrets that the statement by the Honourable Minister serves only to indicate that the Government seems to persist in resorting to the use of the ISA in disregard of other available statutory provisions and fundamental human right provisions under the Federal Constitution.