Government spokesperson Fahmi Fadzil denied that the proposed law to allow house arrest of prisoners was designed to facilitate the release of any specific individual, including VIPs amid speculation that the law was meant to pave the way for releasing PM6.
He added that those eligible under the new law are those whose offences are not too serious and is sentenced to imprisonment for less than a certain period that would be decided later.
Decided later?
The Home Minister said on 19 Oct 2024 that the bill has already been approved by the Cabinet and presently is being drafted by the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the Prisons Department and he expects to table the bill to Parliament in 2025.
Has the Attorney-General’s Chambers done any sentencing review that consider options to hand offenders punishments outside of prison as part of efforts to ease overcrowding prior to the drafting of the bill?
Probably not, otherwise Fahmi would not have said the government has yet to decide on the length of imprisonment as being one of the criteria in determining and deciding which and how many of the existing inmates qualified for home detention upon the passing of the bill in the future.
Both Fahmi and the Home Minister was quoted to have said the house arrest bill will help reduce prison congestion as the facilities now houses over 82,000 prisoners, well over their capacity of 74,000 with about 20,000 prisoners who could qualify, namely first-time offenders who did not commit major crimes, pregnant women, senior citizens, and people with disabilities.
As they said, the proof is in the pudding.
In 2 years, come 2026, or at the end of 2025 after the passing of the bill, the ordinary rakyat will be raising this question with you.
How many of the 20,000 inmates qualified for and are on home detention since the passing of the bill in 2025?
Or since the passing of the bill, only 1 inmate qualified and is serving out his sentence under home detention?
Considering the attention which the government appears to be giving towards the passing of this bill presently, there should only be 62,000 inmates left at the end of 2025 or in 2026, occupying the prisons.
There shouldn’t be any reasons for the rush in getting this bill legislated if the 20,000 inmates - assuming all of them qualified and are eligible to serve out the balance of their sentence - still have to wait for another few years for them to move to home detention due to the inefficiencies in the processing of their application.
As the spokesperson for the government, maybe Fahmi can convey, in reciprocity to the unity government, that comes the 16th GE, the ordinary rakyat who voted for the Pakatan coalition in 2018 and 2022 will be looking back at what the coalition did in 2025 / 2026 in deciding who they would vote for then.
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