Jed Yoong

OK. Am tired. Wanna sleep.

The hall was packed this evening, surprisingly, and the attendees reached a unanimous decision to defer the debate on  the Special Complaints Bill tomorrow.

Choice quotes

Lim Kit Siang said the SCC Bill was the “final test of the leadership of Pak Lah”. He expressed his disappointment that the Prime Minister had “no political courage to implement it (IPCMC)”.

Tunku Aziz, who was a member of the Royal Commission (RC) on the Police, said the original recommendations of the RC has been “completely turned upside down”. He was rather melodramatic when he added: “We can say goodbye to the aspirations and hopes of a police force that money cannot buy.”

Another member of the RC, Param Cumaraswamy, said: “It’s a slap in the face of the Royal Commission,” adding that the SCC “deviates very substantially from what has been recommended.” He also stressed that the Government has a “duty to explaing why it can’t implement the Royal Commission’s recommendations.”

Bar Council Human Rights Council chair Edmund Bon called the SCC a “postbox” and “special referral commission” as it will not have powers to “investigate, prosecute and punish independently”.

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SUARAM and some NGOs will be at Parliament tomorrow afternoon to submit a protest note or something.

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Malaysiakini reported on Saturday:

Kit Siang: It’s a fake IPCMC!
Andrew Ong | Dec 15, 07 4:11pm

Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang today slammed the government for tabling a watered-down version of the much-anticipated Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).

Lim said that the Special Complaints Commission (SCC) bill, which was tabled for first reading in the Dewan Rakyat on Thursday, was in essence a “fraudulent” version of the IPCMC.

He explained that the SCC bill had in its explanatory statement said that the bill was a result of the IPCMC proposals made by the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police in 2005.

“Most unfortunately, the SCC is a completely different animal from one conceived and recommended by the royal commission.

“In fact, it makes a total mockery of the IPCMC proposal as to warrant the SCC bill to be billed as a fraudulent IPCMC,” he said a press conference today.

Continue reading @ Malaysiakini.