Open Court in Prison
For years Prem Kumar, executive director of Prison Fellowship Malaysia, has watched remand prisoners languish in prison as they await trial. Recently, Prem shared his concerns about the situation of 332 remand prisoners with a friend visiting his home. This friend, a former deputy public prosecutor and current Manager of Sabah Courts, decided to see what could be done. He asked Prem to use his role as a Visiting Justice (position created in the Malaysian prison legislation to inspect prisoners) to ask these remand prisoners if they wanted to plead guilty. As a result, the first Open Court session in prison was held on 15 October.
Staffed by a magistrate of the subordinate court, a session court, a
registrar, the Deputy Public Prosecutor and three public prosecutors as
well as other court officials and the police, the Open Court session
processed 80 cases of remand prisoners pleading guilty. In most cases,
the judge granted reduced sentences due to the fact that the guilty
pleas saved the court’s time. For one prisoner, this meant a sentence
of 2 ½ years instead of five years. Counting the 9 months of
incarceration since his arrest and Malaysia’s standard 1/3 remission of
the sentence upon entering the prison gate, he only has 11.1 months
left to serve.
Based on the experience gained in the first Open Court, a second was
planned for 29 October with a few modifications. For example, the
Deputy Public Prosecutor promised to make sure police investigating
papers on each prisoner were there for the follow-up session. The
Manager of the Sabah Courts suggests holding the Open Court Sessions in
East Malaysia’s 10 prisons on a bimonthly basis.
Along with the open courts, PF Malaysia is also working with the
country’s newly-instituted Parole Board. Parole became a possibility in
the country in July 2008. To date, 1000 prisoners have been released
through this mechanism. PF Malaysia provides counseling and monitoring
of parolees in conjunction with the board.
November 2008
