Without Fear or Favour (Season 2) Part 1

Contributed by Rtr Harnniann

Before I go into the core of this article, please allow me to share with you some interesting facts about being arrested and detained.

Section 28 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Act 593) provides that no police officer shall detain in custody a person arrested without a warrant for a longer period than under all the circumstances of the case is reasonable.

Section 28 (3) further provides that such period shall not exceed 24 hours (except with special order of a Magistrate).

From the above, it does not need a law professional to tell us that, in short, section 28 means that after the police arrested and detained a person, necessary action(s) must be taken promptly without any delay and a person being so detained must be released within reasonable period which shall not exceed 24 hours.

But there’s a catch. The “24 hours rule” is not absolute (please do not believe the Hong Kong drama) The detention period may be extended to more than 24 hours if a Magistrate by a special order (normally called “Remand Order”) pursuant to section 117 authorizes so.

Section 117 gives Magistrate discretion to authorize the detention of a person for a term not exceeding 15 days.

Ok, with the above as the backdrop of this article, I shall now proceed to the core.

Very seldom do I handle criminal cases. It is not that I do not have the opportunity: Klang is a place never suffers hunger for crime. Please visit the Klang court when you are free and you shall be amazed by the number of suspects being handcuffed and hauled in and out of the courtrooms.

Most of the time, I turned down the brief. Partly because I was not trained as a criminal lawyer during my pupilage thus accumulating little experience in this field. Partly because I do not have the stomach for such works. Let me explain why.

Yesterday afternoon when I was driving back to Klang from PJ, I received a phonecall which caller id showed “private number”.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Is Andy (a fictitious name) your friend?” a guy asked very rudely.

“Why you need to know?” defensively

“Andy is in Klang Court now, you want to come over or not?”

“Why is Andy in Klang Court?”

“Police applying to extend detention period”

“Ok, I am coming” I answered decisively.

Maybe I have omitted some important facts. Andy is a very close friend of mine. During my days in high school, I often spent nights at his house, sharing the little single bed of his. Because I so used to going to his house, his parents treat me like their son. Sometimes, Andy’s mum even referred Andy as my “god-brother”.

After the conversation with a complete stranger, I hit the accelerator and sped along Federal Highway. In my mind, two things appeared:-

(1) I have to rush to the Court quickly because the police and Magistrate will not wait for me. Don’t you imagine that the Magistrate will say, "ok, we shall wait for awhile while waiting for your lawyer to arrive.” If the Andy’ name is called up before I manage to be there, the Magistrate will proceed to hear the application in my absence and Andy will have to face the whole system alone and defencelessly.

(2) I have never done a remand order application before!!

I reached Klang Court in 20 minutes, parked my car, put on my blazer and rushed to the court building.

The first floor of the building was crowded with people in handcuffs and chains. The space was filled with human odour and the smell was terrible. The luckier ones were sitting on the bench outside the courtroom and the not-so-lucky ones were squatting.

I scanned the room. Andy was sitting on the edge of the bench, handcuffed. He appeared exhausted and was unaware of my presence.

I patted his shoulder. He jerked his head up and looked at me. He was unable to force a smile. The first thing he said was “thanks for coming, please help me”.

The thing about being a lawyer is: people always look at you for comfort and strength because they have none.

The truth is I had no idea how remand order application was going to be like. I studied about it once in college but I had since given it back to my tutor after I passed my CLP exam.

But at that material time, I could not appear weak. My friend was begging for help! I reckoned I could figure it out when I face the Magistrate.

So I decided to act as if I have done this a thousand times before and today is just another routine of my working days.

I uncapped my pen and took out a piece of paper.

“Are you hurt? Did they beat you up in lockup?” trying to sound like a seasoned criminal lawyer.

“No” thank God.

Then I centred my questions on the arrest. What actually happened?

When I collected all the answers from Andy, I was dead shocked.

Welcome to dark side of reality.


(to be continued)