Bar may assist EO youths

The Star (Used by permission)
by SHAILA KOSHY

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Bar is looking into providing legal representation for the 30 youths held under the Emergency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordinance 1969 (EO) in Kelantan.

Its president Lim Chee Wee said the Bar had not known “about this unfortunate state of affairs”.

He said this when asked what the Bar was going to do for the 30 detainees who were in various stages of their detention but had yet to meet a lawyer in that time.

On Sept 8, The Star reported Suhakam commissioner Muham­mad Sha’ani Abdullah as saying they had found 30 persons aged between 16 and 21 detained for various offences at the Reha­bilitation Centre in Machang when they visited on April 13.

Muhammad Sha’ani had decried the use of preventive detention on children – defined under the Child Act as those under 18 years and under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as those up to the age of 18.

Asked what was the point in offering pro bono services if young detainees did not even know their rights or where to go, Lim said this case demonstrated the necessity on the part of the authorities to seriously consider implementing a policy of informing the Bar.

“If they could do that, the Bar could volunteer its services to these detainees, especially the teenagers, in habeas corpus applications.”

Lim said the Bar was helping to raise public awareness by promoting its legal aid services via the various media.

“This serves to remind us of how much more the Government must do to prevent abuse and contravention of its international obligations under the CRC.”

According to Article 37, he said, no child shall be subjected to torture, degrading treatment or punishment, capital punishment or life imprisonment without possibility of release or deprived of life or liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily.

Noting that the detention of a child must be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest period of time, Lim said the CRC added that any child so deprived has the right to prompt access to legal assistance and the right to challenge the legality of his detention.