KOTA KINABALU: The role of Attorney General (AG) should be separated from that of a public prosecutor to remove conflict of interest and improve the public trust towards the AG’s Chambers.
Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan said the AG should remain as a legal advisor to the government and the position should be held by someone fully trusted by the Prime Minister to provide the best legal advice that was necessary.
However, Wan Saiful said the role of public prosecutor had always been questioned as members of the public and opposition parties constantly criticized the AG on the prosecution decisions he made.
“I think because of this, we need to separate the role of public prosecutor from the AG so that there are two different people holding the two offices.” He said this was to ensure the decision whether to prosecute was done independent to the advice given to the government on legal matters.
“You cannot have a situation where the same person is the lawyer to the person who is potentially going to be prosecuted or not to be prosecuted, because that will create conflict of interest.
“We are trying to remove that and make sure the AG enjoys more public confidence,” Wan Saiful said to the media after a roundtable discussion for representatives from the State AG’s Chambers and practicing lawyers here yesterday.
Ideas is a Kuala Lumpur-based independent policy research organization which works on various different issues. The purpose of the roundtable discussion is to address increasing public concerns and negative perceptions over the impartiality and independence of the AG’s Chambers.
Wan Saiful said this independent, self-financed project undertaken by Ideas specifically looked into how to improve the functioning and level of trust the public had in the office of AG.
Taking the possible prosecution of Parti Warisan Sabah leaders as example, Wan Saiful said the matter could be easily turned into a political issue.
“They will say the prosecution is political in nature because the AG who is deciding on the prosecution is appointed by the Prime Minister.
“If you want people to have higher level of trust in the decision to prosecute or not to prosecute the Warisan leaders, then we need to separate the roles.” He said the public prosecutor must be someone who was different from the AG.
“The public prosecutor must be within the civil service or government structure but not a political appointee.
“Being a political appointee will enable the opposition parties to criticize the government for doing this,” he pointed out.
Wan Saiful said Ideas had submitted its proposal to separate the powers of the AG and public prosecutor to the government, and the organisation was in the midst of trying to generate more awareness and informed debate so that there would be political support if the government decided to do it.
He said the organization had been working on the project for more than two years since 2015, when many people started criticizing the AG for his decision over the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) case.
“We started talking to people in the government and people in the opposition.
“And we realize that the problem specific to the IMDB case was that the decision had been done by the very person who was advising the government on how to defend themselves on these various allegations.
“That created the accusation of conflict of interest.
“That made us realize that even if the AG is clearly honest and practising with integrity, people will still question him,” he said.
Since the project started, Wan Saiful said Ideas had been travelling from state to state, including Johor, Sarawak, Pahang, Perak and Penang to hold small discussions to advocate, generate awareness and conversation about this cause. He said small roundtable discussions with stakeholders were preferred to ensure frank conversation and prevent the issue from being politicized.
He admitted that the separation of the roles of AG and public prosecutor would not possibly be achieved in the near future as it required amending the Federal Constitution.
“I’d be happy if one political party take it up (the proposal) in their manifesto for the next general election.
“In terms of actual change happening, I think we are talking maybe another parliamentary term.” Nonetheless, Wan Saiful said Ideas was pushing the government to adopt the proposal, as well as the opposition to take up the agenda.
“For us, it does not really matter if the politician is in the government or opposition.
“All we want is politicians regardless of political parties to be able to debate the issue in a more informed manner.” Also present were Ideas research executive Aira Azhari, state counsel in the State AG’s Chambers, Hanafiah Kassim, Tengku Fuad Ahmad from F.T. Ahmad & Co Advocates and Solicitors and senior journalist C.C. Pung.