National Unity Blueprint sets mechanism to mediate racial and religious conflicts

Writer: Ye Zhi Bin (translated name)
Sin Chew Daily, 26 June 2015

(Kuala Lumpur 25 June) National Unity Blueprint includes a set of mediation mechanism to handle racial and religious issues in the country.

Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, a member of the legal and policy working committee under National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) today tells Sin Chew Daily that the council has submitted the blueprint to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib recently. Prime Minister has said that the blueprint would be discussed in Cabinet soon.

“The blueprint, which has been completed in 20 months covering important sectors such increase interaction of religious groups among various ethnic groups and knowledge enhancement for people, political leaders and parliamentarians on Federal Constitution.”

“If one misinterprets some important clauses in the Federal Constitution such as status of Islam and Article 153 stating Malays and their status as bumiputras, very easily one is caught in necessary disputes.”

He said the blueprint proposes the government to draft a set of mediation mechanism to mediate religious and racial conflicts.

Discrimination is divided into fair and unfair

“For instance when someone complains of unfair discrimination, are all cases requiring the police reports to be handled? Hence, we need to draft a set of methods to resolve problems at fundamental level.”

It is learned that discrimination can be divided into fair and unfair. For instance, a specific ethnic group is lagging behind in social economic status and hence effort is made to improve the situation. This can be seen as “fair discrimination.”

On the other hand, if a fashion outlet refuses to hire a candidate wearing tudung, this is “unfair discrimination”. One needs to offer a reasonable explanation on fair discrimination. Otherwise it can be turned into “unfair discrimination.”

Blueprint does not have legal restraining power

Saifuddin said the blueprint is a proposal submitted by NUCC to the government without any legal restraining power. But he hopes the Cabinet approves and implements proposals stated in the blueprint.

On methods of drafting the blueprint, he points out that there are five different working committees under NUCC. Each committee has held roundtable discussion and submitted proposals. On the other hand, NUCC also held dialogues in 18 cities to listen and gather feedback on the ground.

“We have also had meetings with non-governmental organisations and accept memorandum of understanding as well as academic research.”

On the timing to release the content of the blueprint, Saifuddin said he does not know.

Three harmony bills submitted, two likely to be tabled in parliament

Saifuddin said of the 3 harmony bills drafted by NUCC, one of them is no longer valid as the government has decided to retain Seditions Act. Two other bills are still standing a chance to be tabled in parliament for the bills to be passed.

“The three harmony bills are part of the blueprint. As Seditions Act has been amended, the government changed its plan to repeal the act. I hope two other bills would proceed as they are unrelated to Seditions Act.”

He revealed that the two bills are related to removing unfair discrimination and the formation of a set of mediation mechanism. These two bills are likely to be tabled in parliament.

The three harmony bills drafted by NUCC are: Racial and Religious Hate Crimes Bill, the National Harmony and Reconciliation Bill and the National Harmony and Reconciliation Commission Bill.

He pointed out that if the government adopts proposals listed in the blueprint, it would be contribution towards ASEAN or even the entire world as Malaysian law can be referred by other countries.

‘Almost every country in the world faces racial and religious issues. In the process of drafting the blueprint, NUCC has referred to laws in other countries like Singapore, South Africa, Australia and United Kingdom. If the two bills are passed in parliament, they would be the latest and updated version of law.”

“I am sure that other countries would refer to our law as we learn from each other in this globalised world.”

Original Source: 國民團結大藍圖設機制‧調解種族宗教糾紛