LETTER | As one of the interested stakeholders in the industry, I am writing to pinpoint the glaring, inconsistent and abhorrent disparities in the proper enforcement of the law, regulations, or rules during the present Covid-19 pandemic spread through the length and width of the country.

One has to fully understand that the elimination, prevention, control, surveillance, and management of the pandemic to bring it under effective control resides with the Ministry of Health. 

Under this ministry, they are the legal and lawful custodian of the Prevention of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 and Prevention of Infectious Diseases (Measures within infected Local Areas) (Movement Control), Regulations 2021 or in short PCID (MCO)Regulations 2021. 

The enforcement of the stipulated requirements is enforced by their appointed health officers at the state, city, or district level. To assist them during the enforcement, as presently, the minister can delegate such powers to the local authorities, police, or army. 

Only with such proper delegation of the powers which is then announced in the Federal Gazette can those powers under the PCID Regulations, 2021 be legally and lawfully exercised.

Relating to the standard operating procedures (SOPs), they have no legal backbone under the legislative framework. The sole intention of the SOPs is merely to provide further, clear and useful guidance to the industry, stakeholders, public, and citizens on the compliance of the PCID (MCO) Regulations 2021 enforced by the MOH during the pandemic. 

It is meant to be voluntary guidance in writing and cannot be used to prosecute or compound any person who is caught for not following the SOPs, basically because they are not statutory laws. 

One ministry after another has come out with their SOPs for the respective industries but can only be construed and limited to providing further voluntary guidelines to the industry, stakeholders, public, and citizens to comply with the PCID Act and regulations. 

Any prosecution or compound to be issued has to be made under the vested requirements Regulations 17(1), PCID (MCO) Regulations 2021 or whatever lawful orders made thereunder.

Concurrently, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry has no vested legal powers to enforce or prosecute industries for wrongly declaring their status to operate through the CIMS 3.0 website during the MCO period. 

The database of the CIMS 3.0 needs to be provided to the MOH or its designated health officers or delegated agencies whilst undertaking their enforcement duties.

The law needs to be consistently and fairly enforced during the MCO and not cause unnecessary irreparable consequential costs and damages to any party.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.