Unlawful of MACC to force arrested persons to wear orange lock-up uniforms: Surendran

PETALING JAYA: The MACC is acting unlawfully by forcing arrested persons to wear orange lock-up uniforms, PKR's N. Surendran said today.
Referring to the two recent highly publicised arrests by the MACC of Penang Exco Phee Boon Poh (pix) and Tan Sri Isa Samad, he said they shouldn't have been brought to court in the lock-up uniforms.
"The MACC's practice of making arrested persons wear lock-up uniforms is in breach of the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty," said Surendran, who is Padang Serai MP.
"The practice is hence unlawful, as well as being in breach of Article 5 of the federal constitution.
"An arrested person under investigation must be allowed to wear his own clothes, and not any kind of uniform issued by the enforcement authority that has arrested him.
"An arrested person may thus lawfully decline to wear the lock-up uniform."
He said being forced to wear these bright orange uniforms and paraded in the court premises is humiliating to the arrested person and creates the perception that he is indeed a wrongdoer or criminal, even though the court has not pronounced guilt.
Photographs and videos of arrested persons donning these uniforms are splashed in newspapers and television, worsening the public shaming of these persons, who remain innocent in the eyes of the law, he added.
"This situation is further compounded by the MACC's current trend of going out of their way to court publicity for their actions. Enforcement authorities must never be overzealous in carrying out their duties," he said.
"Similarly, the current practice of the police force in making suspects wear the purple police lock-up uniform is equally wrong and unlawful.
"In contrast, in our prisons, unconvicted persons have the right to wear their own clothes. Regulation 168 of the Prisons Regulation 2000 makes it mandatory for prison authorities to allow unconvicted prisoners to wear their own clothes."
The law thus recognises that unconvicted persons cannot be made to wear lock-up uniforms, he added.