Bringing back Malaysians in prisons to serve remaining sentence in Malaysian prisons is wrong...

What does 'Equality' mean? Equality means also

All these talks about sending foreign prisoners back to their country to spend their remaining prison terms in the prisons of their respective is utter nonsense - and it goes against the principal of equality.

Will prisons in their home country be better or worse of than Malaysian prisons? This certainly throws the guarantee of 'equality' that we have in our Federal Constitution..

What about their right of appeal? Remember, in Malaysia there is 2 rights of appeal. So, will a foreign prisoner be deprived of that right because now he is half way across the world in a prison of his country.

Good behaviour in prison whilst serving your sentence results in early release - a shortening of your prison sentence. Will the prisoner - now sent to a prison in some other country be accorded this right?

A person commits a crime in Malaysia - he is tried by a Malaysian Court and he is thereafter sentenced to prison for a certain term, and that is why he must serve his time inj prison here in Malaysia, and have full access to all rights accorded to a prisoner in Malaysia.

It may not even be an offence in his home country - and it will be quite odd for him to be serving time in a prison in his country.

The same offence may invite a different sentence in his home country (compared to the sentenced imposed by law in Malaysia).

YDP Agung wants to pardon some prisoners (will that Burmese in Malaysian prisons before BUT now serving his time in a Burmese prison) be even considered...

After all we are talking about Malaysian prisoners - convicted by Malaysian courts...sentenced in accordance to Malaysian laws... (The same argument applies for Malaysian prisoners whom the government will bring back to serve their sentences here in Malaysian prisons...)

Really, our home Minister must study the matter further (or just withdraw this suggestion of his), for I fear that putting his ideas into practice would not only be against the constitutionally guaranteed equality in Mallaysia, but may also be unjust and against human rights...

Malaysians in prisons overseas will soon be able to serve out their sentences at home as laws for a prison transfer programme are being drafted, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

He said the programme which would be put in place with the amendment to the Prison Act would also allow foreign inmates in Malaysian prisons to serve their sentences in their respective home countries.

Friendly couple: Hishammuddin (right) and his wife Datin Seri Tengku Marsilla Tengku Abdullah chatting with Sabah Prisons Department staff members after the launch of the new building of the Sabah Prisons headquarters in Kota Kinabalu yesterday.

Foreign prisoners made up over 40% or 15,279 of the 37,242 inmates in 30 prisons nationwide.

“We hope this move will not only allow us to bring back our people in foreign prisons, but also overcome the problem of overcrowding in ours,” he said at the opening of the RM7.6mil new Sabah Prisons Department headquarters in Kepayan here yesterday.

Hishammuddin said the Home Ministry was also looking at various other ways to tackle overcrowding problem.

This, he said, included the expansion of the parole system which was introduced in July last year and introducing alternative sentences which did not require imprisonment for minor offences and those who contravene the Immigration Act.

“This is part of our overall plan to reform all the laws under us to meet the current need,” he said.

He said the Government had also approved the plan to build 16 new prisons nationwide with a holding capacity of 18,000.

The total holding capacity of all prisons nationwide currently stands at 32,000.

He added that steps were being taken to provide vocational and skills training under the integrated school concept in prisons and Henry Gurney School, which is a juvenile detention facility.

“We want to stress on rehabilitation programmes in our detention centres so that prisoners, especially young criminals can learn new skills to prepare them for lives outside the prison once they are released,” he said. - Star, 9/6/2009,Government drafting prisoner exchange laws