In our Selected Exhortations category, we republish interesting stuff such as must-read articles and essays not originally written exclusively for the blawg, and which have come to our attention. Please feel free to email [email protected] if you would like to reproduce your writing, but first follow our Writer’s Guide here.
This podcast is from Oon Yeoh’s Middle Malaysia series.
For our 15th Middle Malaysia podcast, we speak to Foong Cheng Leong, co-chair of the KL Bar IT Committee, about the new amendments to the Evidence Act. It was Foong who first broke the news about the new amendments via an article on the LoyarBurok blog.
He says the article at first didn’t garner much attention. That all changed when theSun published a front-page article based on it. Now, everyone’s talking about the serious implications of the new amendments.
Foong gives a broad overview of what the new law is all about and explains why it should be of grave concern for all those who use the Internet. He also gives his opinions on the different social media scenarios where the Evidence Act could be applied.
His concerns, however, are not just on how this new law could affect criminal and politically charged cases but also civil cases.
Lastly, he gives an example of how this law could affect cases concerning election offences and gives a real-life example of a past case that probably would have turned out very differently had the new law been in place then.
Foong, who often comments on IT issues, is totally against this law and is working towards having it repealed.