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…