|
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 Kuaia 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 for SUHARAM and works actively with a number of NGOs as a lawyer where he advises Gerakan Mansuh ISA (GMI) and National Human Rights Society (HAKAM).
On top of his criminal defense work and activism, Edmund is also involved in public interest cases such as the Perak MB crisis case where he was a council. During the Kota Seputeh vacant state assembly seat, he was a solicitor for the case where he acted for the 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 (newspapers and blogs) and there are a lot of issues regarding the Constitution that has cropped up since the March 2008 General Elections. The Bar Council have received a lot of questions where people ask us about issues on the Constitution so we decided it’s time to set up this new committee to inform people about it as a form of public service and educate the people and deal with Constitutional issues that arise. At the same time, we also advise The Bar Council on Constitutional law issues.
We have over 30 committees in the Bar Council like the criminal law, human rights, convincing and corporate committees. Constitutional law is another branch of law so, we thought - why not we pay some attention to this as well?
So what we did was we 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, we 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 it was launched officially in November 2009.
There are nine phases for this campaign. We’ve launched the first two phases. The phases cover nine core themes of the Constitution: (i) the 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) Parliament (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 sufficient. For each phase we publish 100,000 booklets called The Rakyat Guides which contain in simplified language the content of what the theme is about and we have a one-minute video clip called the Rakyat Service Advertisement which is on our website perlabagaanku.com \. We also usually have a dialogue or forum or seminar or other activities with 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 are those aged 15 to 35, especially the young. That’s why we made it more interesting and colorful and the language is simplified. So long that anybody can read either English or Malay they will be able to understand it. The literacy rate in Malaysia is quite high.
Is there anything unique about our Constitution that stands out from those of other countries?
There are two main things about the constitution all over the world. The first thing, you either have a written constitution or unwritten constitution. 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 see and read it but in England what they have is different forms of legal pronouncement by court and there’s no actual document that’s agreed on. Unwritten constitution 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 court say. Also, in England, the Parliament is supreme while here we have a written constitution where it says that the constitution is supreme so neither the 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?
I think 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 juries, academicians, lawyers and .judges from different parts of the country. 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’s important but one important thing we have to remember is, unfortunately, we have such a strong BN-led parliament that laws made by the parliament has made many inroads into the constitution. So, the constitution appears on paper have quite a lot of safeguards have been diluted in many ways. Therefore we wanted to run this campaign because we want people to realize what the constitution is and what it stands for so that people can 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 going so far? How’s the response been?
Tomorrow we are going to Ipoh where we will launch the second phase of the campaign which theme is Separation of Powers. We always have one major launch and satellite launches where different organizations in different states will have their own launches.
Datuk NH Chan will be speaking on the Separation of Powers with Amir Hamzah. Datuk NH Chan is a retired judge of the Court of Appeal while Amir Hamzah is a human rights lawyer and an activist. They’re going to talk about whether the separation of powers is a myth or reality.
So far the response has been overwhelming. A lot of organizations, the state government and the federal government supports us. It’s just 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 organizations to help us run.
So who are the people running the campaign at the moment?
The Constitutional 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 in different media and we have our reporters pushing out information on the web. We have logistic people to help organize 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 the state government on March 1. It will be about the relationship between the state government and the federal government; what are their functions, roles and powers. It’s mostly about designation of functions so it will help people understand who actually controls what. Like, say, who controls the water, electricity, parking meter, local council elections etc. It will clear the confusion on whether certain things are within the power of the federal or state governnment.
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 Advocate Association of Sarawak and the Sabah Law Association. They are also doing their simultaneous launches and forums and are assisting them also. We are hoping that these booklets can be translated into the native languages so more of the 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 based on recommendations different sections of society especially the alliance government at that time in 1957. Inbuilt in the constitution is provision that parliament may amend the constitution if they get two-thirds majority in the House of Parliament. The last amendment we know about is the extension Election Commission (EC) Chairman.
Why was that an issue?
The Opposition said they wanted to extend the retirement age of the EC Chairman so that the EC can still be in control of the BN government although the EC is supposed to be an independent. That’s the allegation. So now with BN not having two-thirds majority in the dewan rakyat they cannot amend the constitution. But 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 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 that every house has a copy this layperson’s guide but 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 the House of Parliament you can amend the constitution anytime. Of course we practice a system where you should vote according to party line where there’s a whip. If the whip is enforced you have to vote Barisan. That means if Datuk Seri Najib enforces the whip then every BN MP have to vote BN way.
But there are certain things that even the 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.
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. So BN has majority in Parliament even if the Opposition puts in a motion to repeal the ISA BN members would vote against it so the ISA will still be there. To abolish ISA you need a majority government that’s strong and wants to repeal the ISA to do so.
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?
A part of the committee, we have a team of lawyers who do public interest cases. We are a community of young lawyers who take up public interest cases like, for example, habeas corpus to release ISA detainees, religious freedom cases, orang asli cases, land case. My practice revolves around these types of human rights cases and we aim to build network and communities to fight for the rights of the marginalized or oppressed.
We do a lot of our education and awareness-building through the loyar burok website which is a news portal. That’s where we have commentary and analysis on human right issues and issues of the judiciary. This way we can disseminate whatever information and have an online presence.
There’s growing pressure 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 ISA is well and good but after we see the arrest of Reja Petra, Theresa Kok and Tan Hoon Cheng the government was receiving so much pressure and they said “let’s go and amend it”. GMI and Bar Council we are very clear that we shouldn’t amend it; we should just repeal it.
If you want a law that is very similar to the ISA but with greater safeguards like judicial detention then you have a new law and call it Anti-Terrorism Law because when ISA was drafted in 1960 was to deal with the militant communists and militant communists 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
|
.gif)
