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

Malaysia’s Dewan Rakyat (Residence of Associates) has passed the Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill 2021, despite unaddressed considerations of significant shortcomings in the Monthly bill.

The Monthly bill was to begin with tabled for its initial looking at in December 2021 (Study our previous submit: “Malaysia’s Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill tabled in Parliament”). It was then withdrawn from a 2nd examining before in 2022, with the authorities indicating that it would be significantly reviewed subsequent strong opinions been given from many parties. Regrettably, the Invoice which was passed this week only had quite minor amendments from the initial draft.

Due to the constrained revisions built from the 1st draft, our summary of the Monthly bill revealed in December 2021 is nevertheless typically precise: https://themalaysianlawyer.com/2021/12/15/anti-sexual-harassment-invoice/

These are the product changes in the current model of the Bill:

1. A new Clause 7(3) is integrated, introducing a limitation period of time for sexual harassment grievances: “A criticism referred to the Tribunal under this Act is matter to the Limitation Act 1953.”
2. Though the first variation supplied that events at the listening to of a sexual harassment grievance cannot be represented by an advocate and solicitor, this has been revised [at Clause 13(2)] to present that lawful illustration will be authorized if “in the feeling of the Tribunal, the subject in problem requires complicated problems of law”. The revisions also give that if 1 occasion is authorized to represented by an advocate and solicitor, then the other bash will also be so entitled.

With these quite confined alterations, it seems that the issues lifted by many legal rights organisations who had hoped for “a meticulous assessment of the Bill” have been remaining unheard. Time will tell whether or not the new long-awaited law will be comprehensive ample to guard the legal rights and wellbeing of sexual harassment victims.

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