Malaysia needs to enact a freedom of information law, two nongovernmental organizations have urged, also pointed to weaknesses affecting the two state FOI laws in Malaysia.
The comments came from the London-based freedom of expression group Article 19 and the Malaysian human rights group Suaram in the context of the Universal Periodic Review, a state-driven process which involves a review of the human rights records of all UN member states, conducted under the auspices of the Human Rights Council.
The two groups said in their submission that the lack of a national FOI law, coupled with the existence of an official secrets law, “establish a culture of secrecy and fail to set a framework for the right to freedom of information.”
The FOI laws in the states of Selangor and Penang, passed in April 2011 and November 2011 respectively, “represent positive steps forward,” the commenting groups said. However, “numerous weaknesses that have hampered the full implementation” of the laws, they said.
In particular:
The Selangor FOI law does not specify when public bodies are required to periodically disclose information, it stipulates penalties for applicants who use the information sought for purposes other than those specified in an application (Section 18(1)), and it fails to specify how appointments will be made to the State information Board (Section 17(2)). These shortcomings are also reflected in the Penang FOI law, which essentially duplicated the Selangor law.
The Penang law also allows for information requests to be considered rejected in the instance that public bodies do not respond within the designated time frame.
Article 19 and SUARAM also addressed violations of the right to freedom of expression, including “overly restrictive national security legislation, extensive controls over printed media, and the recent reforms to the Evidence Act that severely limit online speech.”
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