Chairman’s Message The Commission further enhanced the effectiveness of its complaints-handling mechanism by introducing an e-complaint system in April to provide members of the public a more accessible method to lodge their complaints on human rights violations. The Commission continued to monitor the exercise of the citizens’ right to peaceful assembly in the country. During the year, the Commission monitored six public assemblies including the two-day BERSIH 4.0 protest held on 29–30 August in Kuala Lumpur, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu. The Commission observed some positive changes following the introduction of the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 (PAA), particularly in the conduct of the authorities, especially the police, which we welcome, as well as the organisers and members of public during the assemblies. The Commission, nevertheless, reiterates the importance for all relevant parties to ensure that protests and public assemblies are held in a peaceful manner as the right to peaceful assembly should not be used as an excuse to perpetrate violence which will only undermine the concept of peaceful assembly as defined under international human rights law. The Commission remains concerned with the conditions of both detainees and personnel incharge in places of detention. It had conducted 35 periodic and inquiry visits to various places of detention throughout the country including prisons, immigration detention centres, police lock-ups, as well as rehabilitation and correctional centres. In October, the Commission and the Enforcement Agencies Integrity Commission (EAIC) jointly conducted an unannounced visit to the Machap Umboo Immigration Detention Centre in Malacca. This was the first unannounced visit successfully conducted by the Commission following its meeting held with the Minister of Home Affairs on 24 April 2014. The Commission attaches great importance to its monitoring duties and opines that it should be allowed to access places of detention without notice while carrying out its investigations or to observe the living conditions in these places - which is a departure from the current practice, but is quite common in other countries. This point was underscored by the Commission to the Home Affairs Minister during its meeting with him, which he duly noted, and he expressed his Ministry’s readiness to support the Commission’s monitoring work. In this regard also the Commission had submitted to the Government ten proposed amendments to its founding legislation that seeks to strengthen the Commission’s mandate and powers as an independent National Human Rights Institution (NHRI). One key proposed amendment was to accord the Commission the power to conduct unscheduled visits to detention sites without first seeking authorisation in order for it to observe the actual situation in there. Unfortunately, almost all of the proposed amendments were not found favourable by the Government; nevertheless, the Commission will continue with these efforts so as to bring itself on par with other NHRIs in the Asia-Pacific region and the world. Despite the limitations in its founding Act, the Commission continued to discharge its functions beyond the explicit provisions within its Act. One such initiative was to hold watching briefs in civil court proceedings involving human rights issues. From 2010 to date, 2 BOOK-ANR2016-01-latest.indb 2 08/04/2016 3:32 PM