Teresa Kok

PUTRAJAYA: Far-reaching amendments to the law have been made in a major move to improve the criminal justice system and clean up the image of the police.

The Government is doing away with cautioned statements which cause a delay in trials and public prosecutors will be required to provide documents and other evidence to defence lawyers ahead of a trial.

Any member of the public will have the right to lodge a police report at any station, mobile or patrol unit or officer on the street, and to have the police give a status report of their case a month later.

And if any police officer obstructs a member of the public from lodging a report, he can be reported to the public prosecutor who can initiate charges.

The changes are part of several amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC).

Amendments to the CPC and the Penal Code were passed on Thursday in the Dewan Negara and will be enforced once the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong gives his consent.

The amendments which have received the most public attention are those regarding marital rape, a revised definition of rape and stiffer punishments for snatch thieves.

But the removal of cautioned statements and the availability of prosecution documents to the defence mark a concerted effort at speeding up trials and cleaning up the image of the police.

In explaining the changes yesterday, Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said they would not only save court time but also improve police investigation procedures. They are also expected to help mend the police force’s battered image.

Radzi said cautioned statements had, in the past, led to a “trial-within-a-trial”.

Cautioned statements are obtained by police from a suspect in a criminal case and can be used as grounds for a charge against him or her.

A-trial-within-a-trial occurs when, during the hearing, the accused claims he is innocent and that police extracted a forced confession through intimidation.

“This caused the public to have a bad perception of the force. Now we have done away with it, and it will make police conduct investigations more thoroughly. They can’t rely on cautioned statements alone.

“If the police say the suspect wants to confess to the crime, bring him to court and let him confess in the open,” said Radzi.

Magistrates will also no longer be allowed to take down an accused’s confession.

The submission of prosecution documents to the defence comes under Section 51A of the CPC, whereby pictures, chemistry reports and other evidence to be used in a trial must be given by the public prosecutor to an accused’s lawyers before the start of a trial.

“Trials often get postponed because the defence will ask for more time to study the prosecution’s evidence. Now all this preparatory work must be done before the trial starts,” Radzi added.

The only exception is for documents classified as government secrets, for which the defence can apply to the judge for an order to release them.

Radzi was chairman of a select committee that spent two years working on amendments to the CPC and the Penal Code.

“It is hard to please everyone. On some things, the police are happy, on others they are not. The Attorney-General is not too pleased about removing the cautioned statement,” he said.

Other changes include:

• The police must inform detainees of the grounds of their arrest as soon as possible, and allow them to place calls to their family, friends and lawyer free of charge, within 24 hours;

• Remand periods must be according to the severity of the crime. For “heavy” crimes, the period is not longer than seven days on the first application, followed by a maximum of seven more days on the second. For other offences, the remand period cannot be more than four days on the first round and three days on the second; and,

• Procedures for body searches by police, Customs or Immigration officials must be one of four types allowed — pat down search (fully clothed), strip search (removal of clothes but officer’s hands cannot touch the suspect’s body), intimate search (squats done over a mirror on the floor to look for hidden objects) and intrusive search (checking of body orifices only by a doctor).