While the Bar Council as well as other civil society groups have started to document the allegations of police abuses that had occurred leading up to and during the Bersih rally on July 9 what is troubling is the deafening silence from any of the members of the newly formed Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC).

The commission is led by retired Federal Court judge Heliliah Yusof and members include Paul Low, Zulkefli A Hassan, Robert Jacob Ridu, Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin, Vinayak Prabhakar Pradhan and Salehuddin Saidin.

If the EAIC is committed to ensuring adequate oversight and accountability of law enforcement agencies including the police in Malaysia and is to be taken seriously by Malaysians it must also immediately launch an independent and impartial inquiry to get to the truth of the allegations of police abuses that occurred.

For many years, Malaysian civil society has highlighted a culture of impunity within the Malaysia police and a pattern of human rights violations including arbitrary arrests, fatal shootings, excessive use of force, ill treatment and torture and deaths in custody and the need for a police complaints body that can receive complaints of police abuse, investigate them independently as well as submit their findings to a public prosecutor if there are criminal violations.

Many had hope that this would materialise in 2005 when a Royal Commission of Inquiry to examine the conduct and management of the police proposed the establishment of an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC). The IPCMC was aimed at dealing with complaints regarding the police and to ensure laws and procedures are observed and implemented by the police.

While initial responses from the senior leadership of the police were positive, in mid-2006, an internal police bulletin criticising the IPCMC was uploaded on the official police website. The police argued that the formation of such as body was ‘unconstitutional, prejudicial to national security and public order and would undermine the ruling coalition’s power’.

Opposition to the IPCMC came also from members of parliament from the ruling coalition, allegedly after a briefing from the chief of police arguing that Malaysia was not developed enough to have an oversight body.

In response to this the government initially proposed a weak Special Complaints Commission (SCC) bill covering 21 enforcement agencies including the police that would have no powers to conduct independent investigations into the police but will only redirect complaints for the police to investigate.

However, in March 2009, after sustained campaigning from civil society groups the government withdrew the SCC bill and tabled the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) bill which incorporates many of major points of the initial IPCMC bill but still covering 21 enforcement agencies.

Despite various criticisms of the EAIC bill it became law in 2009. Some of the positive aspects of the Act include the powers “to refer any complaints of misconduct it receives or that are referred of a criminal nature to the public prosecutor”.

The Act also states that “the EAIC can form a taskforce to assist the commission in performing its functions effectively and efficiently under this Act”

Although it has been reported that operations of the EAIC will only start operations in September 2011,  EAIC members should take the initiative and immediately step a task force to hold a public inquiry to investigate the arbitrary arrests, use of the Emergency Ordinance against the PSM 6 and the excessive use of force by police officers that led to the possible unlawful killing of at least one protester.

The Commission must then make their findings public as well as submit their findings to the Public Prosecutor if they uncover crimes committed by the police in the course of their duty.

If the EAIC does not take these steps it will call to question the integrity and credibility of the commission to deal with violations by law enforcement agencies and it will been seen as another commission under the thumb of the executive.