By Gobind Singh, Puchong MP

Prime Minister Najib Razak has urged families involved in interfaith child custody cases to use the Federal Court to resolve them.

He said the government believes the court will consider giving priority to the cases and that the Attorney-General will consult with the affected families.

With respect, the Prime Minister and Attorney-General seem to miss the point. There is already in existence an order by the High Court. That order remains valid until it is set aside and what is valid must in the meanwhile be enforced.

The Prime Minister shouldn’t dodge the question which is why hasn’t the police acted on a valid and subsisting order?

He should understand that this is a matter of public concern which demands answers and pushing it to the Federal Court just doesn’t solve it.

This is a problem which isn’t peculiar to the facts of this case alone. It is a matter of general application in that if this becomes a precedent, the police could choose to ignore court orders in future and this could lead to a total breakdown of our justice system.

To us, we expect the police to respect and enforce the law.

Section 20 of the Police Act, to my mind says it shall be the duty of a police officer to execute all process lawfully issued by competent authorities, which must necessarily include the courts.

And section 187 of the Penal Code says:

“Whoever, being bound by law to render or furnish assistance to any public servant in the execution of his public duty, intentionally omits to give such assistance, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one month, or with fine which may extend to four hundred ringgit, or with both;

And if such assistance be demanded of him by a public servant legally competent to make such demand for the purpose of executing any process lawfully issued by a Court, ….. shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to one thousand ringgit, or with both.”

Clearly therefore, police officers are bound to assist in executing court orders and any failure to do this could amount to a criminal offence as well.

I call upon the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General to advise the IGP to do his job and execute the High Court order instead of pushing the matter back to the families involved.

This country can ill afford to be seen as one which is incapable of enforcing court orders or enforcing the law. Of course, it will make matters worse if the Prime Minister himself doesn’t have the courage to demonstrate leadership to deal with the problem at hand.