Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015
The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015, is an anti-terrorism law that was passed by the Malaysian government on 7 April 2015. It enables the Malaysian authorities to detain terror suspects without trial for a period of two years. POTA also does not allow any judicial reviews of detentions. Instead, detentions will be reviewed by a special Prevention of Terrorism Board. The POTA bill has been criticised by opposition elements as a reincarnation of the former Internal Security Act, which was revoked in 2012. The passage of POTA coincided with the arrest of seventeen suspected militants who were involved in an alleged terror plot in the capital Kuala Lumpur.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act has faced strong criticism not only from the domestic opposition but also from prominent international human rights organizations. On April 6, 2015, the International Commission of Jurists sent a formal letter to the Speaker of the Malaysian House of Representatives demanding that the law be rejected or fundamentally amended. The Commission noted that the law failed to comply with international human rights law, questioning the necessity of resorting to administrative security detention without trial and the government's failure to justify why the ordinary criminal justice system was incapable of handling terrorism cases. The Commission's primary concern was the unchecked power granted to the Terrorism Prevention Board, which limits judicial oversight of detention decisions, raising serious concerns about violations of the rule of law.
Structure
The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015, in its current form, consists of 5 Parts containing 35 sections and 1 schedule.- Part I: Preliminary
- Part II: Powers of Arrest and Remand
- Part III: Inquiries
- Part IV: Detention and Restriction Orders
- Part V: General
- Schedule