The Right to Assembly: Does this right Exist in Malaysia.

Under part 2 of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, there are certain fundamental liberties than guarantee by the apex legislation of the Nation. In Article 10, it provided that the right of a person / a group of person to assemble. At the same time, the Article also provided that the legislature/parliament can impose certain law in limitation the wideness of this fundamental right. For the past 51 years of the nationhood, there are a number of laws that had been created by the legislature in order to limit the existence of this right.

The most controversial and most discussed law that had been created under the limitation proviso under the Article 10 of the Federal Constitution is the *Police Act. This Act certainly a big threat to the existence of the right to assemble as every citizen had to get a permit by the police in order to hold an assembly. The right to grant the permit lay on the police is questionable as there are no any general guideline provided in order for the District Officer to allow the application or to reject it.

Beside the Police Act, another law that limit the right of a citizen to hold an assembly is the Penal Code. Under the Code, an assembly that consists more than 5 person is consider an unlawful assembly if there are no any license grant by the authority.

In the ever-controversial legislation that had limit the growth of tertiary student of the nation, the University and University College Act had also limit the right of University student in joining or organizing an assembly.

With the numbers of legislation that had been created by the legislatures especially at the latter part of the nationhood, it is clear that the wideness of the right to assemble is actually just a tiny line that actually had trespassed to the meaning of fundamental right that intended by the Reid’s Committee during the days of pre-independent. The existence of this right is a big question as the way the legislature limit the right had actually violated the fundamental liberty of every citizen of Malaysia.

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