All I could do was to smile when I read the malaysiakini repor t which said: "The police commission wants a review to ensure that remand orders are only given in cases where there is sufficient evidence."

Surely there are many other areas that should have been addressed by the commission. After all, the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) had more than two years ago come out with a comprehensive report that dealt with remand procedures, including a set of recommendations. Until today, the government has done little (indeed, literally nothing) about Suhakam's 'Rights of Remand Prisoners Report', dated December 2001.

The judiciary, too, had responded on the matter. In early 2003, the present chairperson of the Police Commission, in his last days as chief justice, introduced guidelines on the conduct of remand proceedings.

He said there were flaws in the 'practice directions' issued to the police. A detainee's access to a lawyer during these remand proceedings could be denied if the police were able to show that the access to a lawyer would interfere with police investigations. The guidelines also had another flaw, in that it seemed to indicate that a person without a lawyer may be subjected to a 'short' remand order to enable him to get a lawyer. This is wrong.

"How can you be remanded on the basis that you need a lawyer?" Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari, the president of the Malaysian Bar asked in his statement, as reported in malaysiakini . Khutubul also urged the judiciary to consider incorporating Suhakam's recommendation in 2001 that a detainee be given the right of access to a lawyer as soon as he was arrested.

Now in May 2004, the Police Commission is again talking about remand procedures. The government and the legislature failed to heed Suhakam's report and recommendations then, and now, I wonder whether they would listen to the suggestions of the Police Commission.

It is also sad that the Police Commission is not dealing with other more pressing concerns like deaths in custody and the deaths from police shootouts, rather than going over grounds already covered by Suhakam.

In 2002, 237 persons died in custody, of which16 died in police lock-ups. In 2003, 188 persons died in custody, of which seven died in police lock-ups. In April 1999, parliament was informed that in the past 10 years, 635 people had been shot dead by the police. This was about 1.2 per week. Of late, it has been said that it has gone up to 1.3 per week.

There is a pressing need for public inquests to be immediately carried out in these deaths, and not just the deaths in custody. Related to this is the right for family members of the deceased to demand a second post-mortem if they are dissatisfied with the initial government doctor's post-mortem.

The new parliament which has just begun its deliberations perhaps will at least spend some time discussing and debating Suhakam's recommendations as none of the human rights commission's annual reports have been considered by our legislature.