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Edmund Bon Tai Soon is anything but your stereotypical formalwear-clad law practitioner (when he's not in court anyway). It could just be his short-sleeve shirt or, perhaps, his slingbag with an 'Abolish ISA' badge on it that gave me this impression.
The senior associate at a law firm in central Kuala Lumpur has been practicing law for twelve years and is active in several roles for he is involved in various committees and human rights groups. Edmund is also an elected member of Malaysian Bar Council for five years and he has chaired the National Young Lawyers Committee for two years as well as Human Rights Committee for the same duration. This would be his fifth year chairing a new committee called the Constitutional Law Committee, which has been set up for the first time in March 2009.
As for Edmund's human rights activism, he’s a secretariat member of SUARAM and works actively with a number of NGOs, and by providing legal advice to Gerakan Mansuhkan ISA (GMI) and the National Human Rights Society (HAKAM).
In addition to his criminal defense work and activism, Edmund has been involved in public interest cases such as the Perak MB crisis case where he was a part of the team of counsel acting for Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin. During the Kota Siputeh State Aassembly seat case, he was a solicitor for the Kedah Speaker and eventually won.
Malaysian Digest caught up with Edmund at his workplace in Menara Dion recently to find out more about the Malaysian Bar Council's public service campaign called MyConstitution which is being initiated by it's Constitutional Law Committee.
Malaysian Digest: Tell us about how the initiative to start the MyConstitution came about.
Edmund Bon: The Constitution has been discussed, debated and argued over the media including in (newspapers and blogs) and there has been great deal of issues regarding the Constitution that has emerged since the March 2008 General Elections. The Bar Council has received many questions on the Constitution so we decided it’s time to set up this new committee to inform people about the Constitution to educate them , and deal with Constitutional issues that arise as a form of public service. At the same time, we also advice the Bar Council on Constitutional law issues.
We have over 30 committees in the Bar Council dealing withl criminal law, human rights, conveyancing and corporate matters. Constitutional law is another branch of law so, we thought - why not we pay some attention to this as well?
We then had a public consultation with lawyers, students, academicians, activists and members of the public, to ask them, as a committee, what the rakyat really want to see us do. Overwhelmingly, all came to a consensus that we need to have an education campaign to bring the Constitution down to the layperson and make it easy to understand. So we decided the Constitutional Law Committee would run it and the MyConstitution Campaignit was launched officially in November 2009.
There are nine phases to this campaign. We’ve launched the first two phases. The phases cover nine core themes of the Constitution: (i) supremacy of the Constitution (ii) institutions of the Constitution and the separation of powers (iii) federal-state relations (iv) fundamental liberties of the rakyat (v) the Legislature (vi) the Executive (vii) the Judiciary (viii) elections and democracy, and (ix) Sabah and Sarawak.
We believe that all these nine themes are key components of the Constitution and if somebody wants to have an overview and understand the Constitution better, these nine themes would be quite sufficient. For each phase we publish 100,000 booklets called the “Rakyat Guides” which contain, in simplified language, the content of the particular theme and produce a one-minute video clip called the “Rakyat Service Advertisement” to present the theme through an audio-visual mode. Both are on our website at www.perlembagaanku.com.
We usually have a dialogue, forum, seminar or other activity to accompany the launch of each phase.
MD: Who are the main people you are targeting for this campaign?
EB: It should be for all the rakyat but the main target groups at the moment is the youth, those aged 15 to 35. That’s why we made it more interesting and colourful and the language simplified. As long as you can read either English or Bahasa Melayu, you will be able to understand it and its good that the literacy rate in Malaysia is quite high.
Is there anything unique about our Constitution that stands out from those of other countries?
The first question to ask is whether the constitution is written or unwritten, Malaysia has a written constitution much like India and Singapore. England, for example, has an unwritten constitution.
Is that the same as codified and uncodified constitution?
Those are legal terms but ‘written’ means it’s a document where you can clearly see and read the provisions of the constitution, but in England what they have are different forms of legal pronouncements by the courts and there’s no actual one document that has been agreed on. With an unwritten constitution, it is more difficult to pin down the key points of the constitution. It has a lot to do with convention and tradition and what the courts say.
Also, in England, Parliament is supreme while here we have a written constitution that is supreme so neither Parliament nor the Judiciary nor the Executive are supreme. Those are the two key differences.
Why is it that there are written and unwritten constitution?
Historical reasons, and I think with a written constitution for Malaysia, it’s to make sure that there’s certain inbuilt safeguards and some guarantees for the people in 1957 when we wanted independence from the British.
Our constitution is based on British one isn’t it?
When we drafted it in 1957, we had what we call the ‘Reid Commission’ made up of jurists, academics, lawyers and judges from different parts of the world. With our constitution, there’s some infusion of British tradition but it mainly follows the Indian Constitution.
So India’s constitution would be the closest to ours?
Yeah. The words are quite similar.
In your view, which is the most important part of the constitution that many Malaysians may not be aware of?
I think there are many things about our Constitution that are important but one important trend we have to remember is, unfortunately, we have had such a strong BN-led Pparliament that laws made by Parliament have made many inroads into the Constitution. So, the Cconstitution appears on paper to have quite a few safeguards but which have been diluted in many ways. We wanted to run this Campaign to help people realise what the Constitution is and what it stands for in order that people may defend the Constitution by themselves.
We need greater ownership and before the rakyat assumes greater ownership to defend the Constitution they need to know what the Constitution says in the first place.
I think not many know that it’s not Parliament that’s supreme, it’s what the Constitution says that’s supreme. I think a lot of people have lost sight of that.
How’s the MyConstitution Campaign going so far? How’s the response been?
Tomorrow we are going to Ipoh where we will have a mini-launch of the second phase of the Campaign themed Separation of Powers”. We usually have one major launch and then satellite launches with different organisations in different states.
Dato’ NH Chan will be speaking on the Separation of Powers with Amer Hamzah. Chan is a retired judge of the Court of Appeal while Amer Hamzah is a human rights lawyer and an activist. They’re going to talk about whether the concept of the separation of powers is merely a myth or a reality.
So far the response has been overwhelming. Many organisations support us., Many State Governments and the Federal Government also support us. It’s just that there’s so much work to do and it can get quite difficult to manage. We need a lot more people as well as funds from different organisations to help us run the Campaign more effectively.
So who are the people running the campaign at the moment?
The Constitutional Law Committee consists of 99 members and they are all running the Campaign in different ways. We produce the booklets, the advertisements and we write articles. We’re going to start our columns with different media partners and we have our Campaigners pushing out information on the web. We have people working on logistics to help organise the launches, forums and workshops. For the workshop, we have come up with two modules on the Constitution and we implement these workshops when people ask for them.
When and where will the third phase of the campaign be launched?
The third phase which is on Federal and State relations will be launched with a State Government on March 1. It will be about the relationship between the State Governments and the Federal Government - functions, roles and powers. It’s mostly about the designation of functions and powers so it will help people understand who actually controls what. Like, say, who controls water, electricity, parking meters, local council elections etc. It will clear the confusion on whether certain things are within the power of the Federal Government or State Governnments.
How far are you going with this campaign? Are you guys going as far as Sabah and Sarawak?
Yes. In the Committee, we have many members from the Advocates’ Association Sarawak, Sarawak Indigenous Lawyers Association and the Sabah Law Association. They are also doing their simultaneous launches and forums and we are assisting them also. We are hoping that our booklets may be translated into the languages of the indigenous so that more people there will be able to read it.
Could you explain a little bit more on the history of the Malaysian Constitution?
The Constitution was drafted by the Reid Commission after consultation with different sections of society. The Alliance at that time in 1957 also made recommendations and most of them were accepted. But to say that it is a ‘people’s constitution’ in the way that the people voted in a referendum for the constitution would not be accurate. Inbuilt in the Constitution is the provision that Parliament may amend the Constitution if it has two-thirds majority in the House. The last amendment I know of is the extension of the Election Commission (EC) Chairman’s retirement age.
Why was that an issue?
The Opposition said the Government wanted to extend the retirement age of the EC Chairman so that the EC can still be in control of the elections the next time round. Although the EC is supposed to be an independent statutory body,. The allegation is that the EC is working with the Government to maintain power in the next elections. BN now does not have two-thirds majority in the Dewan Rakyat and it cannot amend the Constitution. There is some argument that there are certain features of the Constitution like the powers of the Judiciary that can never be amended because they’re what we call part of the the basic structure or the basic feature of the Constitution.
How many people do you aim to reach by the end of the MyConstitution campaign?
Actually, we aim to reach everyone especially through the internet and the media. There are 6.8 million households in Malaysia. We want to make sure every house has a copy of our booklets. Ideally we want to reach all Malaysians, of course.
How much influence does the government have in terms of overruling the constitution or the law in general?
If the Government has more than two-thirds majority in Parliament, it may amend the Constitution anytime. Of course we practice a system where you should vote according to the party position when the whip is imposed. means if Datuk Seri Najib enforces the whip then every BN MP has to vote the BN way.
But in my view there are certain things that even Parliament cannot amend like taking away the powers of the Judiciary. Human rights under the Constitution can never be amended. It can never be taken away; you can only add on to it. This is the ‘basic structure’ doctrine. However, this view has not been widely accepted by the Malaysian courts.
ISA is against the constitution and human rights isn’t it?
With ISA you need enough members in Parliament to be able to repeal the law. BN has a majority in Parliament and even if the Opposition puts in a motion to repeal the ISA, BN members would vote against it and the ISA will still be there. To abolish the ISA you need a majority government that’s strong and wants to repeal it too.
Are you a member of any political party?
No. I’m an elected member of the Bar Council. We try to be as independent as possible.
In the activism part of your life, what kind of things do you do?
Apart from leading the Committee, we have a team of lawyers who take up public interest cases. We try to expand the community of young lawyers who take up public interest cases , for example, habeas corpus applications to release detainees held under the ISA, religious freedom cases, orang asli land rights and refugee cases, and others My practice revolves around these types of human rights cases and we aim to strengthen the network and communities to continue fighting for the rights of the marginalised and oppressed.
We try to do education and awareness-building through the loyarburok.com website which is something like a portal for the analysis of human rights- and law-related issues. We have commentaries on issues of the day including discussing matters of the judiciary. Further, we disseminate views and information as an online presence.
Pressure is mounting on the government to abolish ISA. Do you think they are going to do something about it soon?
Many years ago the Government was very adamant that the ISA was well and good but after we saw the arrests of Raja Petra, Theresa Kok and Tan Hoon Cheng, the Government got so much pressure that they said ‘“let’s go and amend it’”. GMI and the Bar Council are very clear that we shouldn’t have to amend it; we should just repeal it.
If you want a law that is very similar to the ISA but with greater safeguards such as judicial detention then you may think about a new law to specifically deal with terrorist activity such as an ‘Anti-Terrorism Act’. When the ISA was drafted in 1960, it was to deal with the militant communists but that threat doesn’t exist in Malaysia anymore. Now we have a new threat of terrorism so we should have a new law to deal with this threat but with greater safeguards. Related News
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