Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz last month stressed the need for a check-and-balance between the investigation side and prosecution when dismissing calls for such powers for the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
Only the Attorney-General has such powers in the country.
“I think it shouldn’t,” de Speville replied when asked how important it was for an anti-corruption body to have prosecution powers in the bid to cut graft.
The former head of Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is widely-regarded as an authority in the fight to cut graft. He was in Kuala Lumpur for the launch of his book, “Overcoming Corruption: The Essentials”, republished by the Research for Social Advancement.
De Speville, who has acted as a consulted to some 48 countries, went further by advising against granting the enforcement body further jurisdiction to also take its cases to court.
“Because I believe it’s important in fighting corruption we don’t lose sight of our basic principles of criminal justice and those basic principles say the functions of investigating, prosecuting and trying and sentencing should be kept distinct,” he explained.
“The investigator investigates, the prosecutor decides whether or not to prosecute and the judge tries and sentences.
“It’s very important those three functions are kept separate,” he stressed.
De Speville added that if a graft investigator is alleged of being corrupt while on the job, the matter should be investigated no differently from any other case.
The MACC, modelled after the ICAC, was set up in 2008 to step up the fight against corruption, a crime that was seen as a “white-collar” offence.
Malaysia’s dipping scores over the years in the annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by world graft watchdog, Transparency International, is alleged to have cost the country billions of ringgit in foreign direct investments.
Groups from both sides of the political divide and outside have been lobbying Putrajaya to inject MACC with prosecution powers.
Among the pro-prosecution supporters then were Umno Youth deputy chief Datuk Razali Ibrahim and Bar Council chief Ragunath Kesavan.
A 2009 MACC report noted that the enforcement body only had a 45 per cent conviction rate.
Of the 754 cases that were taken to the lower courts last year, just 79 cases resulted in convictions.
Of the 119 cases that went on trial in the High Court, 77 cases were in the prosecution’s favour.
