ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
This paper reports a study which proposed statutory and policy measures overcoming public information lock out in Malaysia. Public information lock out refers to the presence of the laws which impede the citizens’ right to seek public sector information. In the absence of constitutional guarantee and sui generis right to information law, the citizens’ right to seek public sector information could be impeded by existing legislation, in particular Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Act 1998. The Act empowers the Commissioner and the Minister to prohibit public access to online contents under s 211(1) and s 266(1)(c). Similarly, Copyright Act 1987 vests in the Government with the exclusive right to control public access to PSI through technological protection measure (s 36A). The study compared the laws and policies in the UK, Canada and New Zealand in order to identify the statutory and policy measures overcoming public information lock out. A cross-sectional survey was also conducted among 40 respondents from government agency, independent statutory body, civil society and academia. The findings of the survey help to provide an insight on the most appropriate statutory and policy measures in overcoming public information lock out in Malaysia.
Article 19, (2017). The Communications and Multimedia Act 1998: Legal Analysis. Retrieved from https://www.article19.org/data/files/medialibrary/38690/Malaysia-analysis-Final-December.pdf
Fernandez, J. (2016). Hindraf Calls for Freedom of Information Act. Retrieved from http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/02/08/hindraf-calls-for-freedom-of-information-act/
Freedom House, (2017). Freedom on the Net 2016 : Malaysia Country Profile. Retrieved from https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2016/malaysia
Hashim, S. (2016). Section 211 and 233 of the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998: A Double Edges Sword. Retrieved from http://shahrinhashim.blogspot.my/2016/07/section-211-and-233-of-communication.html
Lor, P. J., & Britz, J. J. (2007). Is a Knowledge Society Possible Without Freedom of Access To Information? Journal of Information Science, 33(4), 387-397.
Muhamad Izwan, I. (2014). Legal Hurdles in Freedom of Information in Malaysia. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2470291
Mishra, A. (2013). Right to Information Empowerment or Abuse. Retrieved from http://lawmantra.co.in/right-to-information-empowerment-or-abuse-2/
National Human Rights Society, (2016). Media Access Block. Retrieved from http://hakam.org.my/wp/index.php/tag/media-access-block/
OECD. (2006). Digital Broadband Content: Public Sector Information and Content. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/sti/ieconomy/36481524.pdf
In-Text Citation: (Hashim, Yahya, Suhaimi, Mahmood, & Zain, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Hashim, H. N. M., Yahya, N. A., Suhaimi, N. S., Mahmood, A., & Zain, F. M. (2018). Statutory and Policy Measures Overcoming Public Information Lock Out in Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(10), 1153–1163.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode