LETTER | I refer to Hanipa Maidin’s comments “Sorry, minister - the police were wrong”.

I beg to differ – I don’t think the police were wrong.

The relevant law is the Protected Areas and Protected Places Act 1959 (Act 298). Section 5(1) of the act says that no person shall be in a protected place unless he is in possession of a pass or permit issued by an authorised officer or has received the permission of such officer on duty to enter the protected place.

A protected place means any premises declared to be a protected place by virtue of the provisions of Section 5 of the act.

Section 8 of the act says that every offence against the provisions of the act “shall be seizable and non-bailable for the purposes of the law for the time being in force relating to criminal procedure.”

The deputy minister knows better what a seizable offence is under the law – that is, the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC). Section 2 of the CPC defines seizable offence as an offence for which a police officer may ordinarily arrest without a warrant.

So, even if the six police officers from the Putrajaya police headquarters were coming to Suaram’s office to serve its executive director Sevan Doraisamy and coordinator Azura Nasronthem with a notice under Section 111 of the CPC to give their statements to the police, the police were within the law to arrest both of them without warrant under Section 23(1)(a) of the CPC.

That provision allows any police officer to arrest without warrant “any person who has been concerned in any offence committed anywhere in Malaysia which is a seizable offence under any law in force in that part of Malaysia in which it was committed or against whom a reasonable complaint has been made or credible information has been received or a reasonable suspicion exists of his having been so concerned.”

In short, the police may arrest without warrant where there is a reasonable complaint or credible information or reasonable suspicion that a person has committed a seizable offence.

So, if there was an arrest by the police, I would humbly say that it was lawful.

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