My (late) submission to the Committee for Institutional Reforms

COMMENTS:

Citizenships should be able to access the law easily, in order to determine how to comply with it. The Committee for Institutional Reforms must review how citizens have been hindered, or passively not-enabled, from accessing and interacting with the laws of the nation. Two comments follow, below. Recommendations are in the next form field.

# ONE

Initially written on 20 May. [redacted text from: https://www.facebook.com/jerngatwork/posts/950916425089065 / link ]

# TWO

This next comment is anecdotal, and supplementary to the comments above.

As a small business owner, I have at time been to my local city council to determine the current state of by-laws, only to be told that the city council may enforce, but not disseminate the letter of the law. In order to obtain the letter of the law, I have been redirected to third-parties officially granted the agency of publishing hard-copies of the latest version of Malaysian laws. This is frankly, absurd.

In running a business as simple as a cafe, I have to interact with legislation of over a dozen agencies, including the Energy Commission on gas piping, and the Inland Revenue Board on withholding taxes on fees for Internet Advertising. There is no simple way to access all of these laws at once, and in a short amount of time. This is not a necessary state of affairs. Based on my conversations with other small business owners, in many cases they do not even bother to look up these laws.

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SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS:
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A core problem is that many citizens have a weak ability to interact with their local laws, particularly those laws which enable them to affect public policy via the Dewan Rakyat (parliament).

RECOMMENDATIONS:

(8.) Reintroduce via the Dewan Negara (senate) a formal review of what "effective citizenship" looks like - the fundamental requirements for individual citizens.

(9.) Extend this discussion with the Ministry of Education. Then review the 2013-2025 education blueprint in light of the findings from this discussion.

(10.) Extend this discussion with the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia. Then review the ability of any citizen to access within five (5) minutes, and update their knowledge to the current state of any item in Malaysia's official law, from the Constitution, all the way down to local council by-laws.

(11.) Extend this discussion with the Ministry of Home Affairs. Then review the portfolios of the (ministry of home affairs) which are concerned with information dissemination and public education - and discuss the practicality of moving these portfolios to the (ministry of communications and multimedia). Thereafter, extend the discussion to determine a clear and transparent framework for effective interaction between the two ministries, in order to address the core issue raised above. Furtheronto the (ministry of home affairs) should review programs and funding for adult citizens (older than 21 years of age) to continuously review the state of the law, in their daily activities. References to the law must be encoded into the algorithm of public life - it must not be allowed to remain optional.