11 March 2025. Amendments to the Whistleblower Protection Act 2010 was tabled for the first reading in Parliament last Thursday. The two key amendments found in the Whistleblower Protection (Amendment) Bill 2025 were:
(a) the removal of the proviso in Section 6, whereby protection can now be given to a whistleblower even if the disclosure was against any specific law; and
(b) amendment to Section 11(1)(a) whereby the protection will be revoked only if the whistleblower was found to have “wilfully” participated in the improper conduct.
TI-Malaysia applauds the government’s decision to remove the proviso in Section 6 as this will give more courage to whistleblowers to come forward even when he or she is under a specific law preventing such disclosure as the provisions of the Whistleblower Protection Act will grant immunity to the whistleblower from the provisions of the prohibiting specific law. However, TI-Malaysia is of the view the amendment to Section 11(1)(a) falls short of dealing with the issue of protecting whistleblowers who had participated in some way in the improper conduct.
The proposed amendment to Section 11(1)(a) only has the effect of protecting whistleblowers who “unknowingly” or “unwillingly” participated in the improper conduct, meaning to say their protection will not be revoked even if their participation was discovered since such participation was “unwilful”. The crucial question is why must the “absolute innocence” of the whistleblower be the criterion for the protection not to be revoked? What if the whistleblower who was not the main wrongdoer, but later repentant of his or her participation, wanted to “make things right”? Shouldn’t he or she still be given a chance for whistleblower protection”? Such a move will accord with global best practices for the protection of whistleblowers. What TI-Malaysia and other CSOs ask for is not that all whistleblowers who participated in the improper conduct be given protection but that the Enforcement Agency be given the discretion whether or not to still grant the protection on a case by case basis. In other words, the word “shall revoke” in Section 11 should be replaced with “may revoke”. This would be a much better way of dealing with the issue.
To underscore the need for such amendments, Cuepacs (Congress of Union of Employees in the public and civil service of Malaysia) last month raised an alarm by saying that civil servants were forced to take bribes. While this statement shocked the nation on the state of our civil service today but the government must take this alarm seriously and allow a channel for the public servants to come forward and report wrong doings. This is the only way to clean up the civil service. Without addressing this weakness by simply adding the word “wilfully” the amendment to the Whistleblower Protection Act will not have an impact and we almost back to square one on this issue. Such half-baked reforms will not get us anywhere and the dream to achieve top 25 ranking in the Global Corruption Perception Index by 2033 will only be more difficult, said president of TI-Malaysia Dr Muhammad Mohan.
TI-Malaysia would urge BHEUU, the Attorney General’s Chambers and CSOs to sit together and relook at this issue and come up with a better solution before the 2nd reading of the Bill in June this year.
Note to Editors: For clarification on any and all official statements from Transparency International – Malaysia (TI-M), kindly refer to its President, Dr Muhammad Mohan (mmohan@transparency.org.my)
