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The Bar Council views with grave concern the prevalence and manner in which police officers have discharged their firearms, most of which result in deaths, and calls for mo re exacting standards to be employed in dealing with issues arising out of such shootings.

The Bar Council recognises the role of the police force in maintaining law and order and preserving peace and security in Malaysia. It further appreciates that in order to fulfil this role, police officers should be permitted to exercise their powers in the way they have been trained without fear of the consequences of their actions thereby avoiding unfortunate compromises on their part. This, however, does not mean that police officers are not to be accountable for their actions.

In connection with this, the Bar Council respectfully differs with the recent High Court decision in the case of Tony Ak Beliang v Public Prosecutor in that it validates the use of firearms by police officers in questionable circumstances. Secondly, it also effectively concludes that a trained police officer acting in an official capacity with an un-holstered weapon is to act no differently from a layperson when confronted with an apparently dangerous situation. Both are entitled to react with only self-preservation in mind. However, police officers have been trained to use firearms effectively, the layperson is not. Police officers have voluntarily assumed certain risks and have been trained to deal with those risks, but the layperson has not. Shooting to kill by the police cannot be treated as being an acceptable way to deal with those risks. Thirdly, the decision effectively validates the use of extreme force by police officers in questionable circumstances when more accountability is required of them.

The Bar Council as such calls upon the Government and the Royal Malaysia Police to consider each and every discharge of a firearm by a police officer in the course of his/her duties as a serious and significant event, and an anomaly until otherwise explained. To this end, the Bar Council also calls upon the Government and the Royal Malaysia Police to put in place transparent and effective measures to deal with the discharge of firearms by police officers.