The MACC’s practice of making arrested persons wear lock-up uniforms is in breach of the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty, according to Padang Serai MP N Surendran.
Noting that in two recent highly publicised arrests by the MACC, Penang Exco Phee Boon Poh and Felda’s Isa Samad were brought to attend court wearing bright orange MACC lock-up uniforms, which he said was unlawful.
Saying it was a breach of Article 5 of the Federal Constitution, Surendran added: “An arrested person under investigation must be allowed to wear his own clothes, and not any kind of uniform issued by the enforcement authority that has arrested him.”
Surendran, a noted lawyer and rights campaigner, said in a statement today that an arrested person could lawfully decline to wear the lock-up uniform.
He said: “Being forced to wear these bright orange uniforms and being paraded thus in the court premises is humiliating to the arrested person and creates the perception that he is indeed a wrongdoer or criminal, even though the court has not pronounced guilt.
“Photographs and videos of arrested persons donning these uniforms are splashed in newspapers and television, thus worsening the public shaming of these persons, who remain innocent in the eyes of the law.”
He said the situation was made worse by the MACC’s trend of going out of their way to court publicity for their actions.
Saying enforcement authorities must never be overzealous in carrying out their duties, he added: “Similarly, the current practice of the police force in making suspects wear the purple police lock-up uniform is equally wrong and unlawful.”
In contrast, in our prisons, he said, unconvicted persons had the right to wear their own clothes.
Regulation 168 of the Prisons Regulation 2000 makes it mandatory for prison authorities to allow unconvicted prisoners to wear their own clothes.
The law, therefore, recognises that unconvicted persons cannot be made to wear lock-up uniforms.
“In the case of Phee Boon Poh, he was also unnecessarily handcuffed, even though it was quite clear that the Penang Exco member posed no escape risk. Handcuffs should not be used upon suspects if there is no risk of escape or violent conduct.”
The vocal MP called on the MACC, police and all other enforcement authorities to immediately cease the “unlawful and unconstitutional practice” of making arrested persons wear lock-up uniforms.
Failure to do so, he warned, might result in civil liability suits against these authorities.
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