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Human Rights Watch slams agreement to send 800 asylum seekers in Australia to Malaysia in exchange for 4,000 refugees.
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Monday, 25 July 2011
Australia and Malaysia sign 'refugee' deal
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Talents on the move
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Local accountants attracted by foreign greener pastures
By LIZ LEE lizlee@thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: Despite unwavering interest in accountancy courses at universities and colleges, mid-tier accounting and auditing firms are finding it difficult to hire and retain their accountants.
The problem: the outflow of local talents to foreign “greener pastures”.Baker Tilly International chief executive officer and president Geoff Barnes told StarBiz that something needs to be done about this, as “a strong audit profession underpins an economy with good corporate governance, a strong capital market and an economic environment that can cross borders.”
Barnes said the accounting profession has always demanded the brightest of people globally and that good firms have always had this “war for talent, because we are all looking for the best people”.
Barnes (left) and Heng stressing on the importance of retaining accounting talents.Heng added that many graduates left mainly due to the salary disparity. To counter this, he said firms needed assistance from the Government as “a word from the Government is better than a thousand words from practitioners”.
“We need to slowly bridge the gap between the salary we pay here and that offered in the countries attracting our talents. We need assistance from the regulators to impress upon clients that low fees also affect the quality of an auditing job,” Heng said.
A fresh graduate can earn up to RM100,000 per annum in China, around RM85,000 per annum in Singapore while Australian firms pay about RM160,000 per annum. Locally, they would earn about RM30,000 only.
SJ Grant Thornton (SJGT) managing partner Datuk Narendra Jasani said an estimated 500 accounting graduates out of 1,500 from local universities leave the country every year.
Both firms, BTMH and SJGT, said the Government could further benefit the country's accounting profession by liberalising immigration policies.
Heng said the many foreign students studying here could be a good source of accountants for local firms, provided the Government revises the related immigration restrictions.
“We must acknowledge their potential and train them to become qualified professional accountants,” he said.
Both Heng and Jasani suggested that the Government could look into giving foreign students a work permit of three to four years after their studies.
“To avoid disheartening our Malaysian accountants, a quota could be set for firms to employ no more than 20% foreign accountants,” Jasani further suggested.
Heng pointed out that another turn-off for young accountants to begin their career here is the difficulty in getting a licence to practise.
“The accountants have to go through about a decade of university education and training, topped off with a scrutinising interview that tests them on the technicalities of the industry before the Finance Ministry issues a licence,” Heng said.
Specifically, Malaysian accountants need three years for a university degree, three years of working experience, another three years of post-Malaysian Institute of Accountants membership and an interview to determine whether they would qualify for a licence. The tedious process and no guarantee of getting a licence to practise has become a deterrent to young accountants when embarking on their careers.
“We also have to change work procedures. One aspect is to change the audit methodolgy no more ticking and checking all the time but more thought-processing, overviews and comparative analysis which is more suited to the younger generation,” SGJT's Jasani said.
Grant Thorton International chief executive officer Ed Nusbaum said the rapid economic growth and expansion in the entire Asia-Pacific region has caused the shortage of talent.
“The demand is greater than the number of students graduating from universities and qualified experienced talent within the region. Whether you are talking about Malaysia, China or India, we need to attract people to the accounting profession,” he said, adding that dynamic firms also contributed to attracting young accountants.
“Being part of a growing organisation makes (one's career) interesting and employee retention is better because people see opportunities,” Nusbaum concluded.
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Don’t Get Caught Holding Dollars When The U.S. Default Arrives!
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Addison Wiggin
Image by Getty Images via @daylife Greece can’t solve a problem of too much debt by taking on even more. We will note, however, that by some measures, the United States is even more deeply in hock than Greece.Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 143%. America’s is officially 97%. But the $14.3 trillion national debt, stacked up against a $14.7 trillion economy, doesn’t tell the whole story. Look at these numbers:
• $14.3 trillion: “official” national debt
• $5 trillion: Amount Uncle Sam is on the hook for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
• $62 trillion: Total liabilities and unfunded obligations for Social Security and Medicare
That doesn’t count the black box of bailouts.
We know how much the Federal Reserve doled out in emergency loans: $16.1 trillion between Dec. 1, 2007, and July 21, 2010. We know that because yesterday the Government Accountability Office completed its first-ever audit of the Fed, made possible largely through the persistence of Rep. Ron Paul (R.-Tex.) making that audit, however incomplete, the law.
What we don’t know is how much of that has been paid back. “We have literally injected about $5.3 trillion,” said Dr. Paul earlier this month during his questioning of Fed chief Ben Bernanke, “and I don’t think we got very much for it. The national debt went up $5.1 trillion.”
Bernanke did not challenge those figures.
“To get our overall fiscal gap under control,” writes Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff in Bloomberg, “the U.S. must cut spending or raise tax revenue by $20 trillion over the next decade, far more than either the president wants or the House Republicans seek.”
Yep: The latest number we see bruited in Washington is $3 trillion. Whatever the final number — and there will be a last-minute deal; there always is — it will be substantially less than $20 trillion over 10 years. The can will be kicked as it keeps getting kicked in Greece.
We note here that the total of outstanding credit default swaps on U.S. Treasuries crested $4.8 billion this week. Uncle Sam has now surpassed Greece in this category.
Measured in year-over-year change, America is number one: Net notional CDS outstanding grew 109%. That means there’s double the bets out there on a U.S. default compared with a year ago.
“You may not know this, but the U.S. has actually defaulted a number of times already,” writes Chris Mayer this morning. He cites five instances:
• 1779: The government was unable to redeem the continental currency issued during the Revolutionary War
• 1782: The colonies defaulted on the debt they took out to pay for the war
• 1862: During the Civil War, the Union failed to redeem dollars for gold at terms stated by the debt contracts
• 1934: FDR defaults on the debt issued to finance World War I, refusing to redeem it in gold. The dollar is devalued 40% against gold
• 1979: A bureaucratic snafu results in interest going unpaid on some small bills.
“With the exception of 1979,” Chris says, “which was mostly due to administrative confusion — the U.S. simply ran out of money each time. The end result was the dollar had to be devalued. Meaning it lost significant purchasing power.
“My guess is that the U.S. will default again. It may not technically be called that, but the only way for the U.S. to meet its financial obligations is to print a lot of money.”
What does that mean in practical terms? In Greece, professor Savas Robolis at Panteion University in Athens reckons that by 2015, the average Greek employee and pensioner’s standard of living will have fallen 40% compared with 2008.
Even now, Americans are turning to their credit cards to pay for groceries and gas. According to First Data Corp., the volume of gasoline purchases put on credit cards jumped 39% over the last 12 months.
You don’t want to be the average American in a default scenario, whenever it arrives. Ray Dalio, the head of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund, puts that day in “late 2012 or early 2013.”
The Path to Debt in America by Addison Wiggin originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning.
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Saturday, 23 July 2011
US debt ceiling: Senate rejects Republican 'cut, cap and balance' bill
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Senate rejects Republican 'cut, cap and balance' bill
"If we don't solve it, every American will suffer," Mr Obama said of the debt ceiling debate
The Democratic-led US Senate has rejected a "cut, cap and balance" bill passed by the Republican-led House.
The bill would have severely cut public spending and forced the government to balance its budget.The Democratic-led US Senate has rejected a "cut, cap and balance" bill passed by the Republican-led House.
The move highlights divisions within Congress as a deadline nears to raise the US debt limit, analysts say.
On Friday, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said a deal to avoid a possible default on 2 August was "not close".
'No agreement'
Republicans and Democrats appeared on Friday to harden their respective positions over the debt issue.
Mr Boehner was quick to quash reports that he was close to hammering out a deal with President Barack Obama.
What happens if US defaults?
Uncharted territory but two scenarios emergeWorst case:
- Higher interest rates on mortgages, credit cards and loans
- Government unable to pay wages to staff, including military
- Social security cheques stopped
- Turmoil on international markets
- Default could be avoided by paying creditors, at expense of slashing spending
"There was no agreement, publicly [or] privately, never an agreement and frankly not close to an agreement," Mr Boehner, a Republican, told reporters following a private meeting with House Republicans.
In a town hall-style meeting with voters in Maryland on Friday, President Obama warned that every American would feel the economic pain if Congress failed to reach an agreement to raise the US debt limit.
"If we don't solve it, every American will suffer," he said. "Businesses will be less likely to invest and hire in America. Interest rates will rise for people who need money to buy a home or a car, or go to college."
The US national debt is currently about $14.3tn (£8.8tr), fed by an annual government budget deficit that reached $1.5tr this year.
The US government's authority to borrow money is limited by statute.
Historically, Congress has raised that debt limit as a matter of routine, but this year, the Republican party - buoyed by a group of newly elected hardline fiscal conservatives in the House of Representatives - has demanded steep cuts to the US budget as the price of an increase.
Who owns the $14.3tn debt?
- US government owes itself $4.6tn
- Remaining $9.7tn owed to investors
- They include banks, pension funds, individual investors, and state/local/foreign governments
- China: $1.16tn, Japan: $0.91tn, UK: $0.35tn
- Deficit is annual difference between spending and revenue, $1.29tn in 2010
- Congress has voted to raise the US debt limit 10 times since 2001
The Obama administration has warned the US risks defaulting on its debt if Congress does not raise the limit by 2 August.
In recent weeks, Republican and Democratic congressional leaders have worked with the White House to devise an agreement that would raise the limit while trimming the budget deficit, but the talks have collapsed several times.
Republicans have fiercely resisted Democratic proposals to raise additional tax revenue by closing tax loopholes that Democrats say primarily benefit the wealthy, while Democrats have vowed to protect social programmes for the elderly and poor from Republican-proposed cut backs.
In recent weeks, the White House and a bipartisan "gang of six" senators have floated proposals to trim trillions of dollars over the next decade.
The plans would cut the deficit through a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, but hardline conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have urged Republican leaders to reject those.
Meanwhile, Senate Democratic and Republican leaders are crafting a fall-back plan that would enable Mr Obama to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally.
The Republican-led House of Representatives approved the "cut, cap and balance" plan on Tuesday of this week.
It would have reduced government spending by cut spending by $5.8tr over 10 years, capped future government spending at a certain percentage of the US economy, and amended the US constitution to require a balanced budget.
Mr Obama vowed to veto the bill, and the Democratic-led Senate on Friday rejected it, saying it would bring about steep cuts in social programmes.
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Friday, 22 July 2011
Malaysia should do away with outdated laws to meet human needs
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Malaysia still has the Internal Security Act 1960 -- which allows for the detention without trial of people deemed to be threats to national se-curity -- for more than half a century.
The phrase "the law is an ass" is attributed to Charles Dickens.
It originates from Oliver Twist after the character Mr Bumble is told: "The law supposes that your wife acts under your direction".
What one of the foremost classical writers of English literature actually wrote was: "If the law supposes that, the law is an ass, an idiot."
No, he wasn't using grammar akin to the Manglish being taught in our schools today. It was just that the rules of the language were not quite defined during his era.
But as then as in now, many laws can be described as asinine. They have become meaningless through the passage of time but are still in force and have become subjects of ridicule.
In the United States for example, incestuous marriages are not deemed illegitimate in the southern state of Alabama.
Another law in Mississippi states that if one is a parent to two illegitimate children, he or she can be jailed for at least a month.
In New York, adultery is still a crime and one can be fined US$25 for flirting.
It is illegal for a woman to be on the street wearing body-hugging clothes but she can go topless in public, provided she is not doing it for any business.
In Denver, Colorado, the law states that dog catchers must notify dogs of impounding by posting for three consecutive days, a notice on a tree in the city park.
Apparently it is also unlawful to lend one's vacuum cleaner to a next-door neighbour.
More than eight women are not allowed to live in the same house in the state of Tennessee because that would constitute a brothel, while Encyclopaedia Britannica is banned in Texas because it contains a formula for making beer at home.
In President Barack Obama's home state of Illinois, it is now illegal to wear sagging pants. A new law requires pants to be "secured at the waist to prevent the pants from falling below the hips, causing exposure to the person or the person's undergarments."
And there are many comical laws still in force in the United Kingdom.
For example, it is illegal to die in Britain's Houses of Parliament and sticking a postage stamp bearing the Queen upside down is deemed an act of treason.
In Liverpool, where footballers and fans tend to strip off their shirts in celebration of goals, it is illegal for a woman to be topless -- unless she is a clerk in a shop selling tropical fish.
As for the outdated legislation in Malaysia, they are anything but funny.
We still have too many laws that allow for detention without trial, contravening the fundamental principles of human rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 and other international conventions.
Malaysia still has the Internal Security Act 1960 -- which allows for the detention without trial of people deemed to be threats to national se-curity -- for more than half a century.
For the record, the ISA has not been used against political opponents since Najib Tun Razak took over as Prime Minister on April 3, 2009.
But it remains in force, despite calls for its repeal by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam), the Association for the Pro-motion of Human Rights (Proham), the Bar Council, politicians and civil society organisations.
So do other equally outmoded and detestable edicts such as the Emer-gency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordinance 1969, the Re-stricted Residence Act 1933, Pre-vention of Crime Act 1959 and the Banishment Act 1959.
Under the EO, detainees can be held for 60 days with a possible extension of two years or more without trial.
In 2005, the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysia Police affirmed that the EO violates international human rights and called for its repeal, saying that it had "outlived its purpose and facilitated the abuse of fundamental liberties".
The detention of six Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) leaders, including Sungai Siput MP Dr Michael Jeyakumar under the EO since July 2 for "allegedly being involved with foreign and subversive elements", has again fuelled suspicions of such misuse.
The six were among 30 arrested on June 25 for allegedly supporting Bersih 2.0 and possessing T-shirts with faces of communist leaders on them.
At a time when public confidence in the police and credibility in the rule of law are being questioned, the continued detention of Dr Jeyaku-mar under the EO can only result in more rancour against the Government.
Dr Jeyakumar, the giant killer who thrashed Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) supremo S. Samy Vellu in 2008, may be an unwavering socialist committed to his cause, but he certainly does not fit the image of a dangerous or subversive element.
Enough Malaysians, including his colleagues in the medical fraternity have vouched for his humility and integrity, his selfless passion to help the poor and his peaceful approach to politics.
It's really a bit of a stretch to associate Dr Jeyakumar with intending to "wage war against the King" and instigating the overthrow of the Government.
But if the authorities indeed have any such proof, they should charge him and the others using existing criminal laws.
In the bigger picture, Malaysia as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, is not only expected to meet the principles of human rights but also be seen to be respecting and upholding the rights of its people.
Malaysians deserve to be free from laws that breach basic standards.
WHY do we have the law? In other words, what is the law essentially about?
The law is about our needs. Where there is a need, whether it is to eat or to be protected from harm, the law is created to address those needs.
When you want to understand the law, you need to first understand what is the need behind that law.
For example, Article 9 of the Federal Constitution sets out our right to move and live in any part of Malaysia. Why? Because we need to move and settle wherever we want in our country.
When we needed to protect ourselves from being robbed, the law addressed that need by creating section 390 of the Penal Code setting out the offence of robbery.
Simply put, the law accommodates human needs. With that logic, how can we say that we cannot be protected and loved by the law? How can we also say that the law does not serve us?
We sometimes tend to forget. We also sometimes forget another simple fact about the law: as our needs grow and change, the law can grow and change with those needs.
For example, in response to the public’s need to counter corruption, parliament passed the Anti-Corruption Act 1997 and subsequently replaced it with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009.
To combat money laundering and terrorism financing, the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001 was passed.
Mind you, these laws were passed less than ten years ago. Hence, whether or not these laws are effective, the point remains: the law continues to change as it follows our needs.
What does this say? Like us, our Government realises that they have to respond to our needs to curb corruption or to deal with the problem of money laundering.
After all, our Government, like many other governments, serves us, the people, as we serve them. Without each other, our Government cannot work and we cannot live in this country at all.
The law creates regulations. Without the law, we are without order, stability, regulation and consequently, we would be without peace.
Every piece of legal document that you see came from a source. In Malaysia, we wrote these basic laws into a document called the Federal Constitution.
In Britain, the place from where we derived a lot of our laws, it has no written constitution.
So, if we think of this logically, there was no natural source for laws that outlawed one kind of human or another. There simply was the love to protect and support our needs.
And what was the fifth basic law that was passed by Malaysia?
This is set out in Article 5 of our Federal Constitution which states: “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty, save in accordance with law.”
What was the source before that fifth basic law?
“This Constitution is the supreme law of the Federation and any law passed after Merdeka Day which is inconsistent with this Constitution shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.”
This is my third article on the law and if you noticed, I repeat certain themes. Without any disguise, I see the law as a very simple thing. It even protects companies.
For example, section 222 of the Companies Act, 1965 allows a company to be protected from court proceedings if it makes such an application to the court.
Allow me to show you how much more simple and powerful it can get.
The law creates protection, officers of protection and leaders to protect the law. The law was created to love us.
Take another example, the issue of teenage pregnancy. Teenage mothers and their babies are protected by the usual criminal laws and the Child Act 2001.
However, the current laws on unwed teenage mothers do not provide adequate support systems for these mothers who are abandoned by the fathers of the babies and their own families.
As a result, many of these mothers are forced out into the streets or into shelters.
If we want to change the current laws to address the needs of unwed teenage mothers and their babies, we actually can!
Just like with the Anti-Corruption Act, we can act on our need to punish unwed fathers who have abandoned their pregnant teenage partners and update our laws to give better support to these mothers.
Let’s not forget that blame and causation is not the issue here. The issue here is that we have the power to change the law if we love our needs enough.
As public citizens, we are the reason why there are laws in the first place. As public citizens, we outnumber lawyers, ministers, doctors and accountants put together. So by numbers alone, we as public citizens have more power with the law than our professional colleagues do.
Each and every one of us is more powerful than we think. After all, we have the law that was created to love us and to address our needs.
Like in my last article Mirror, mirror on the wall, let’s just keep things simple.
Let’s use the law and ourselves to treat everyone with courtesy, morality and love.
> Putik Lada, or pepper buds in Malay, captures the spirit and intention of this column – a platform for young lawyers to articulate their views and aspirations about the law, justice and a civil society. For more information about the young lawyers, visit www.malaysianbar.org.my.
Malaysia should do away with outdated laws
The phrase "the law is an ass" is attributed to Charles Dickens.
It originates from Oliver Twist after the character Mr Bumble is told: "The law supposes that your wife acts under your direction".
What one of the foremost classical writers of English literature actually wrote was: "If the law supposes that, the law is an ass, an idiot."
No, he wasn't using grammar akin to the Manglish being taught in our schools today. It was just that the rules of the language were not quite defined during his era.
But as then as in now, many laws can be described as asinine. They have become meaningless through the passage of time but are still in force and have become subjects of ridicule.
In the United States for example, incestuous marriages are not deemed illegitimate in the southern state of Alabama.
Another law in Mississippi states that if one is a parent to two illegitimate children, he or she can be jailed for at least a month.
In New York, adultery is still a crime and one can be fined US$25 for flirting.
It is illegal for a woman to be on the street wearing body-hugging clothes but she can go topless in public, provided she is not doing it for any business.
In Denver, Colorado, the law states that dog catchers must notify dogs of impounding by posting for three consecutive days, a notice on a tree in the city park.
Apparently it is also unlawful to lend one's vacuum cleaner to a next-door neighbour.
More than eight women are not allowed to live in the same house in the state of Tennessee because that would constitute a brothel, while Encyclopaedia Britannica is banned in Texas because it contains a formula for making beer at home.
In President Barack Obama's home state of Illinois, it is now illegal to wear sagging pants. A new law requires pants to be "secured at the waist to prevent the pants from falling below the hips, causing exposure to the person or the person's undergarments."
And there are many comical laws still in force in the United Kingdom.
For example, it is illegal to die in Britain's Houses of Parliament and sticking a postage stamp bearing the Queen upside down is deemed an act of treason.
In Liverpool, where footballers and fans tend to strip off their shirts in celebration of goals, it is illegal for a woman to be topless -- unless she is a clerk in a shop selling tropical fish.
As for the outdated legislation in Malaysia, they are anything but funny.
We still have too many laws that allow for detention without trial, contravening the fundamental principles of human rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 and other international conventions.
Malaysia still has the Internal Security Act 1960 -- which allows for the detention without trial of people deemed to be threats to national se-curity -- for more than half a century.
For the record, the ISA has not been used against political opponents since Najib Tun Razak took over as Prime Minister on April 3, 2009.
But it remains in force, despite calls for its repeal by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam), the Association for the Pro-motion of Human Rights (Proham), the Bar Council, politicians and civil society organisations.
So do other equally outmoded and detestable edicts such as the Emer-gency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordinance 1969, the Re-stricted Residence Act 1933, Pre-vention of Crime Act 1959 and the Banishment Act 1959.
Under the EO, detainees can be held for 60 days with a possible extension of two years or more without trial.
In 2005, the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysia Police affirmed that the EO violates international human rights and called for its repeal, saying that it had "outlived its purpose and facilitated the abuse of fundamental liberties".
The detention of six Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) leaders, including Sungai Siput MP Dr Michael Jeyakumar under the EO since July 2 for "allegedly being involved with foreign and subversive elements", has again fuelled suspicions of such misuse.
The six were among 30 arrested on June 25 for allegedly supporting Bersih 2.0 and possessing T-shirts with faces of communist leaders on them.
At a time when public confidence in the police and credibility in the rule of law are being questioned, the continued detention of Dr Jeyaku-mar under the EO can only result in more rancour against the Government.
Dr Jeyakumar, the giant killer who thrashed Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) supremo S. Samy Vellu in 2008, may be an unwavering socialist committed to his cause, but he certainly does not fit the image of a dangerous or subversive element.
Enough Malaysians, including his colleagues in the medical fraternity have vouched for his humility and integrity, his selfless passion to help the poor and his peaceful approach to politics.
It's really a bit of a stretch to associate Dr Jeyakumar with intending to "wage war against the King" and instigating the overthrow of the Government.
But if the authorities indeed have any such proof, they should charge him and the others using existing criminal laws.
In the bigger picture, Malaysia as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, is not only expected to meet the principles of human rights but also be seen to be respecting and upholding the rights of its people.
Malaysians deserve to be free from laws that breach basic standards.
Law to meet human needs
Putik Lada By Genevieve Tan
We sometimes forget a simple fact about the law: as our needs grow and change, the law can grow and change with those needs.WHY do we have the law? In other words, what is the law essentially about?
The law is about our needs. Where there is a need, whether it is to eat or to be protected from harm, the law is created to address those needs.
When you want to understand the law, you need to first understand what is the need behind that law.
For example, Article 9 of the Federal Constitution sets out our right to move and live in any part of Malaysia. Why? Because we need to move and settle wherever we want in our country.
When we needed to protect ourselves from being robbed, the law addressed that need by creating section 390 of the Penal Code setting out the offence of robbery.
Simply put, the law accommodates human needs. With that logic, how can we say that we cannot be protected and loved by the law? How can we also say that the law does not serve us?
We sometimes tend to forget. We also sometimes forget another simple fact about the law: as our needs grow and change, the law can grow and change with those needs.
For example, in response to the public’s need to counter corruption, parliament passed the Anti-Corruption Act 1997 and subsequently replaced it with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009.
To combat money laundering and terrorism financing, the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001 was passed.
Mind you, these laws were passed less than ten years ago. Hence, whether or not these laws are effective, the point remains: the law continues to change as it follows our needs.
What does this say? Like us, our Government realises that they have to respond to our needs to curb corruption or to deal with the problem of money laundering.
After all, our Government, like many other governments, serves us, the people, as we serve them. Without each other, our Government cannot work and we cannot live in this country at all.
The law creates regulations. Without the law, we are without order, stability, regulation and consequently, we would be without peace.
Every piece of legal document that you see came from a source. In Malaysia, we wrote these basic laws into a document called the Federal Constitution.
In Britain, the place from where we derived a lot of our laws, it has no written constitution.
So, if we think of this logically, there was no natural source for laws that outlawed one kind of human or another. There simply was the love to protect and support our needs.
And what was the fifth basic law that was passed by Malaysia?
This is set out in Article 5 of our Federal Constitution which states: “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty, save in accordance with law.”
What was the source before that fifth basic law?
“This Constitution is the supreme law of the Federation and any law passed after Merdeka Day which is inconsistent with this Constitution shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.”
This is my third article on the law and if you noticed, I repeat certain themes. Without any disguise, I see the law as a very simple thing. It even protects companies.
For example, section 222 of the Companies Act, 1965 allows a company to be protected from court proceedings if it makes such an application to the court.
Allow me to show you how much more simple and powerful it can get.
The law creates protection, officers of protection and leaders to protect the law. The law was created to love us.
Take another example, the issue of teenage pregnancy. Teenage mothers and their babies are protected by the usual criminal laws and the Child Act 2001.
However, the current laws on unwed teenage mothers do not provide adequate support systems for these mothers who are abandoned by the fathers of the babies and their own families.
As a result, many of these mothers are forced out into the streets or into shelters.
If we want to change the current laws to address the needs of unwed teenage mothers and their babies, we actually can!
Just like with the Anti-Corruption Act, we can act on our need to punish unwed fathers who have abandoned their pregnant teenage partners and update our laws to give better support to these mothers.
Let’s not forget that blame and causation is not the issue here. The issue here is that we have the power to change the law if we love our needs enough.
As public citizens, we are the reason why there are laws in the first place. As public citizens, we outnumber lawyers, ministers, doctors and accountants put together. So by numbers alone, we as public citizens have more power with the law than our professional colleagues do.
Each and every one of us is more powerful than we think. After all, we have the law that was created to love us and to address our needs.
Like in my last article Mirror, mirror on the wall, let’s just keep things simple.
Let’s use the law and ourselves to treat everyone with courtesy, morality and love.
> Putik Lada, or pepper buds in Malay, captures the spirit and intention of this column – a platform for young lawyers to articulate their views and aspirations about the law, justice and a civil society. For more information about the young lawyers, visit www.malaysianbar.org.my.
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