The Price of Being Poor: How Fines Under the New Amendment Ordinance Has Entrenched Inequality and What Has to Change

The growth of the Malaysian criminal justice system over the last decade is by now well known, but the use of fines, fees, and other monetary sanctions as a form of punishment has only recently begun to receive wide attention after the coming into force of The Emergency (Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases) (Amendment) Ordinance 2021 (“the Amendment Ordinance”).

On 25 April 2021, a burger stall operator in Kelantan said he was left stunned after authorities slapped him with an RM50,000 compound fine for allegedly violating the movement control order (“MCO”) for operating past the permitted hours. Just over one week ago, Malaysians were outraged when a few students from the Perak Matriculation college were fined RM1,500, each allegedly violating standard operating procedure (“SOP”) without any prior investigation. Most recently, a rojak seller in Kota Bharu now claims to have received a similar fine of RM50,000.

Under the law, Ministers are empowered to make regulations guiding or regulating a procedure to obtain something and compound certain offences with the law enforcement agencies in Malaysia like PDRM to collect a certain amount of money as a fine from the offender(s). The Amendment Ordinance had been gazetted on the 25th of February this year and came into force on 11 March 2021. As a result, Section 25 of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (“PCIDA”) has been amended.

To summarise the amendments made to the PCIDA under the Amendment Ordinance, the powers of enforcement are now enhanced by making offences under the PCIDA seizable, which means that the police officer may ordinarily arrest without a warrant as defined under the Malaysian Criminal Procedure Code (“CPC”). Further, it introduced corporate liability and liability for acts of agents and their employees. Next, the penalties imposed for offences under the PCIDA and regulations under the PCIDA have been significantly increased.

Section 9 of the Amendment Ordinance, which replaced Section 25 of PCIDA, now provides that “The director-general or any authorised officer, may … compound any offence under this Act or any regulations under this Act…