KUALA LUMPUR – Putrajaya is to set new legislation allowing home detention as an alternative punishment for certain offences, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
He said this when tabling Budget 2025 in Parliament today, adding that the law to allow house arrest will only be for convicts of certain crimes.
Anwar, who is also the finance minister, said that under the proposed law, offenders will have to remain at a designated location deemed suitable by authorities, such as a residential home, care centre or worker dormitories for the duration of their sentence.
Officers from the Prisons Department, Anwar added, will set certain conditions and monitor compliance by offenders during their house arrest.
Currently, there are no laws for prisoners to serve their jail sentences under house arrest.
In March, Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said that the government had agreed in principle to implement the licensed release of prisoners through home detention for prisoners serving jail sentences of four years and below.
Noting that the move is part of an effort to reduce overcrowding in prisons, Saifuddin said that his ministry would examine whether amending existing laws would be sufficient, or if there was a need to enact a new law under the authority of the Prisons Department director-general or the Home Ministry.
He added that the prison inmates involved in the proposed initiative will include individuals with chronic diseases, the elderly, persons with disabilities and expectant mothers.
Saifuddin later refuted claims that the suggested introduction of home detention was meant to facilitate house arrest for incarcerated former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who is currently serving his prison sentence at the Sg Buloh Prison for corruption in the SRC International case.
Najib contends that there is allegedly a supplementary order issued by the 16th Yang di-Pertuan Agong along with his sentence reduction by the Pardons Board to allow him to serve the remainder of his jail term under house arrest.
Najib has since appealed the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s decision to reject his application for leave to undertake a judicial review which he filed in a bid to enforce the purported supplementary order. – October 18, 2024