Government

Malaysia passes Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill with very minor amendments, despite widespread criticism

October 23, 2022
Mary G. Sweeney

Malaysia’s Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives) has passed the Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill 2021, regardless of unaddressed issues of important shortcomings in the Invoice.

The Invoice was in the beginning tabled for its 1st reading through in December 2021 (Read through our past put up: “Malaysia’s Anti-Sexual Harassment Monthly bill tabled in Parliament”). It was then withdrawn from a next reading through previously in 2022, with the authorities indicating that it would be significantly reviewed pursuing strong suggestions obtained from numerous events. However, the Bill which was handed this 7 days only had incredibly insignificant amendments from the initially draft.

Because of to the constrained revisions manufactured from the to start with draft, our summary of the Bill posted in December 2021 is nonetheless primarily precise: https://themalaysianlawyer.com/2021/12/15/anti-sexual-harassment-monthly bill/

These are the material variations in the updated edition of the Monthly bill:

  1. A new Clause 7(3) is involved, introducing a limitation interval for sexual harassment problems: “A criticism referred to the Tribunal under this Act is matter to the Limitation Act 1953.”
  2. While the original model supplied that events at the hearing of a sexual harassment complaint cannot be represented by an advocate and solicitor, this has been revised [at Clause 13(2)] to provide that legal illustration will be allowed if “in the viewpoint of the Tribunal, the subject in question entails intricate issues of law”. The revisions also present that if a single get together is authorized to represented by an advocate and solicitor, then the other social gathering will also be so entitled.

With these really confined alterations, it seems that the problems raised by numerous legal rights organisations who had hoped for “a meticulous assessment of the Bill” have been remaining unheard. Time will tell irrespective of whether the new very long-awaited law will be in depth ample to protect the legal rights and wellbeing of sexual harassment victims.