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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 6, 2020

KUALA LUMPUR: Chief Justice Tan Sri Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat (CJ) has urged judicial officers to consider the risk of contagion when sentencing offenders to jail during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Federal Court chief registrar’s office said in a statement yesterday that it had taken note of the Prisons Department director-general Datuk Seri Zulkifli Omar’s letter last Thursday, proposing that offenders of the movement control order (MCO) be sentenced to community service instead of jail. “The chief registrar’s office confirmed receiving the letter from the Prisons director-general,” the statement said.

“On directions by the CJ, this office has advised judicial officers that while they consider the provisions of the law in sentencing, they should also take note of the risk of spreading Covid-19 to prisons when passing sentences on MCO offenders,” it said.

This means it had given full discretion to judicial officers, namely magistrates and Sessions Court judges, to consider other options in sentencing those who flouted the MCO, following criticisms by various quarters including lawyers that the courts may be too strict in passing jail sentences. In Zulkifli’s letter to Federal Court chief registrar Ahmad Terirudin Mohd Salleh, sighted by theedgemarkets.com, he made the proposal for courts to consider sentencing offenders to community service to avoid congestion in prisons and prevent the spread of Covid-19.

“According to our records as of April 1, there are 378 MCO offenders who have been remitted to prison. Besides causing congestion in the prisons, the department is concerned that they may result in the spread of Covid-19 as their health status remains unknown. This also creates the problem of social distancing of prisoners and this would endanger the safety and health of inmates,” Zulkifli said in the letter.

For this reason, Zulkifli suggested the courts utilise the Offenders Compulsory Attendance Act 1954 to remit offenders to do community service instead which had been utilised by the Prisons Department since 2010.

He hoped the courts would consider the Prisons Department’s request.

It was previously reported that lawyer Datuk Baljit Singh Sidhu had advised more discretion in order to avoid remand or prison sentences for MCO suspects in order to prevent congestion and spreading Covid-19 in prison. 

Tengku Maimun has also allowed remand proceedings to be conducted at police stations rather than in court to minimise the transmission risk of Covid 19.

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